The bodies of two children who were part of a group of around 50 Rohingyas who tried to escape from Bhasan Char were found after washing up onshore over the last two days.
Police on Friday (August 20) morning recovered the body of an unidentified boy lying in Keoraban on the west Syedpur Sagar coast in Sitakunda and handed it over to the Coast Guard.
Sitakunda Police Station Inspector (Investigation) Sumon Banik confirmed the matter.
“We recovered the body of an unknown child and handed it over to the Coast Guard,” he said.
Coast Guard sources informed UNB that the body was of a Rohingya boy and it would be taken to Bhashan Char very soon.
Similarly on Thursday the body of a Rohingya child named Imam Hossain (11) washed ashore at Bhasan Char.
The victims belong to the same group of Rohingyas whose trawler capsized in the small hours of Saturday due to bad weather in the sea as they tried to flee from Bhasan Char on a fishing trawler they managed to arrange from a broker on the island.
According to the Coast Guard, around two hours after setting off on Friday night (Aug 13), the trawler was caught in a storm and sank in the sea around 20 km from Bhasan Char, near Hatiya. Another fishing trawler rescued 14 of them from the spot and brought them back to Bhasan Char on Saturday morning.
It was only then that the authorities were alerted to the incident and they mounted a rescue and recovery operation. Another boy was rescued alive on Saturday.
Over the next three days, 11 bodies were found by the Coast Guard, in the deep sea and the Swandip coast. Police recovered the body of a 12/13-year-old Rohingya girl from Guliyakhali beach in Sitakunda on Wednesday.
Noakhali Superintendent of Police (SP) Mohammad Shahidul Islam said the bodies of 13 Rohingyas have been handed over to the relatives of the deceased and the burials have been completed with the permission of Noakhali Deputy Commissioner.
Shamima Akhter Jahan, assistant commissioner in-charge of the Bhasan Char Asylum Project, said that at least 13/14 more Rohingyas are still missing over the incident.
Source: United News of Bangladesh