Teknaf, Bangladesh: Seven Bangladeshis were rescued yesterday off Burma coast after they were thrown from a fishing trawler crowded with migrants heading to Malaysia, said Coast guard commander Dickson Chowdhury from Saint Martin. 

“The seven men were plucked from the water in the Bay of Bengal by a boat of Burmese fishermen and handed over to local Bangladeshi fishermen.”

A Thai fishing trawler threw them into the Bay of Bengal. They are now under our custody, Dickson said.

The seven rescued Bangladeshi had informed, three boats crowded with Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingyas in the area, Dickson added.

The three boats were parked five miles south of Burma’s Sitaparokia Coast of Maungdaw Township. 68 people were in one boat and the two others have more than 100 people each,” he more added.

The outflow of trafficked migrants to Malaysia through risky sea routes seems unstoppable despite an international outcry and the ongoing anti-trafficking crackdown by law-enforcers, said a local elder named Rofique from Cox’s Bazar. 

Organized human traffickers continued to smuggle Bangladeshis and Rohingyas into Malaysia by sea,  security force sources said.

Meanwhile, BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh) Chief Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed of 42 Battalion of Teknaf  said they have intensified surveillance on different bordering points in the country to check human trafficking and smuggling deadly drug like Yaba and Phensidyl.

At present, BGB is more serious to arrest human traffickers and drug smugglers in the frontiers areas, said a trader from Teknaf.