BD detains boat with 116 migrants

DHAKA: Bangladesh discovered 116 nationals, some sick from a lack of food, adrift in a fishing trawler in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday after being abandoned by smugglers en route to Malaysia, officials said.
A joint navy and coast guard patrol boat detained the trawler near Bangladesh’s southernmost island of St. Martin’s close to the border with Myanmar, an official said.
“There were 116 illegal migrants in the fishing trawler. They are all Bangladeshis,” coast guard station commander Dickson Chowdhury told AFP by phone.
Many had been stuck on the trawler for weeks off the Bangladesh coast waiting to begin the perilous journey to Southeast Asia, and many had gone without food for days, Chowdhury said.
“They have been on the boat from 15 days to three months. For the last seven days some of them have not eaten anything other than water.