Malaysia officials recover more bodies from capsized migrant boat

At least 21 people are now known to have died after a boat carrying undocumented migrants sank near the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi, near the border with Thailand.

Search and rescue operations have entered their third day. Thirteen people have been rescued but dozens remain missing. The Malaysian Coast Guard estimate about 70 people were on board.

Those on the boat are believed to be among 300 people - mostly Rohingya - who left Myanmar's impoverished Rakhine state two weeks ago, Malaysian authorities said.

Another boat carrying 230 passengers is still missing.

Malaysia's maritime authority expects the operation, involving sea surface and aerial searches, to last seven days.

At least one of the bodies recovered was of a child, authorities said.

Of the 13 rescued, 11 are Rohingyas and two are Bangladeshis.

The Rohingyas, who are primarily Muslim, are one of the many ethnic minorities in Myanmar. However, they are denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar.

Since August 2017, a deadly crackdown by Myanmar's army sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas fleeing across the border into Bangladesh.

Conflict and poor living conditions in Bangladesh however have also prompted some Rohingyas to make precarious journeys on overcrowded vessels to Malaysia, a Muslim country which some envision to be a safe haven in the region.

"People are dying in the fighting, dying from hunger. So some think it's better to die at sea than to die slowly here," a Rohingya refugee in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, had previously told Reuters.

Officials say many of them would have each paid more than $3,000 (£2,300) for these passages by sea.

These boats are often small and cramped, lacking in basic facilities like fresh water and sanitation.

And they do not always make it to their destination. Some die at sea, while others are sometimes detained or deported.

Some have also been turned away upon nearing Malaysia and Indonesia, either by authorities or local coastal communities. In January, Malaysia turned away two boats carrying around 300 refugees after giving the passengers food and water.

More than 150,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh's refugee camps since late 2023, while hundreds of thousands are internationally displaced, Amnesty International estimates.

The rights group said in a statement that the recent capsizing "once again lays bare the deadly risks faced by Rohingya Muslims" trying to flee persecution in Myanmar and deteriorating refugee camps in Bangladesh.