Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 17, 2026
More than 500 Rohingya are feared dead after two boats sank off the coast of Burma.
Hundreds of men, women and children are feared to have drowned because they had no safe place left to live and no safe route to protection. This catastrophic loss of life was entirely preventable. It is the direct consequence of the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya and the international community’s failure to stop it and hold those responsible to account.
According to BROUK sources, both boats departed from Arakan Army-controlled areas of Rakhine State. The Arakan Army is deeply involved in human trafficking, both profiting from it and facilitating it. According to information received by BROUK, the Arakan Army also facilitated Rohingya reaching and boarding both boats.
One boat carrying approximately 280 people departed from Pauktaw Township on 29 June and is believed to have sunk around 7 July. Traffickers responsible for the boat requested permission from the Arakan Army to delay its departure because of severe weather. The Arakan Army refused, stating that more Rohingya were on their way and the boat had to leave.
Weather forecasts warned of torrential rain, thunderstorms and hail. At sea, squalls with winds of up to 30 miles per hour and waves reaching 9 feet were forecast.
A second boat carrying approximately 250 people is believed to have departed from Ponnagyun Township on 4 July and sunk around 11 July. BROUK is continuing to verify the exact departure point and date the boat sank.
Both boats were believed to be heading for Malaysia or Indonesia.
The boats were carrying Rohingya families fleeing Arakan Army-controlled areas, where Rohingya continue to face persecution, violence and the denial of their fundamental rights.
No family would risk crossing the Andaman Sea during the height of the monsoon unless remaining in Rakhine was even more dangerous. These boats were not carrying people seeking a better life. They were carrying people who had nowhere safe left to go.
For almost a decade, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) has warned that the campaign to erase the Rohingya from their homeland neither began nor ended with the Burmese military’s 2017 genocide. Following the 2017 military offensives, the Burmese military continued and intensified decades-long policies designed to make life unbearable for Rohingya and force them from Burma. Today, those same policies are being continued under the Arakan Army, which now controls most of Rakhine State, through widespread and systematic persecution, dispossession, attacks against Rohingya civilians and sexual violence.
For years, trafficking networks have preyed on Rohingya families left with no safe route to protection. The UN Refugee Agency has described the Andaman Sea as an “unmarked grave” for Rohingya refugees. The international community has failed to end the persecution, dispossession and impunity that leave Rohingya with no choice but to be exploited by traffickers.
Tun Khin, President of BROUK, said:
“These Rohingya did not die because of dangerous weather at sea. They died because of the policies of the Arakan Army, which tries to force Rohingya to flee and then profits through its involvement in human trafficking when Rohingya do flee.”
“Governments are making the same mistake with the Arakan Army as they did with the Burmese military in the run up to the 2017 military offensive by staying silent and failing to act. Their silence is creating a sense of impunity that encourages the Arakan Army to continue escalating human rights violations against Rohingya, just as the Burmese military did between 2012 and 2017.”
“Rohingya are being forced to choose between genocide in their homeland and misery, hunger and slow death in refugee camps in Bangladesh.”
The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK is calling on governments to end their policy of quiet private engagement with the Arakan Army, which has demonstrably failed, and instead impose sanctions and other forms of pressure in response to the Arakan Army’s violations of international law and its role in facilitating human trafficking.
For media inquiries:
Please contact Tun Khin on +44 (0)7888 714866 or email info@brouk.org.uk
Image: Rohingya asylum seekers disembark from their boat upon landing in Ulee Madon, North Aceh, Indonesia, November 16, 2023. © 2023 Rahmat Mirza/AP Photo