Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Bangladesh stops more Rohingya taking risky trip to Malaysia

Bangladesh security forces stopped 22 Rohingya Muslims from being smuggled to Malaysia by boat, officials said Monday, the second group in three days prevented from leaving squalid refugee camps.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) forces found 11 women, 10 children and a man at a village on the Bay of Bengal coast, near the border with Myanmar, on Sunday.


The 22 had paid traffickers up to $1,200 each to get a place on a small boat for the dangerous journey, a BGB officer said. The people smugglers fled before security forces arrived.

About 740,000 of the Muslim minority fled Myanmar for Bangladesh after a military clampdown in the Buddhist-majority nation in August 2017.

There were already 300,000 Rohingya already in Bangladesh where they are largely confined to the overflowing camps.

"The traffickers took whatever they could from the refugees," Lieutenant Colonel Asadud Zaman Chowdhury, BGB chief for the town of Teknaf, told AFP.

He added that it was possible many of the young women would have ended up in "forced prostitution".

It is the fourth time since November that Rohingya have been intercepted attempting to get a boat to Muslim-majority Malaysia.

On Friday, border guards stopped 30 Rohingya from boarding a boat and sent them back to their camps.

Authorities fear that more Rohingya will try to take boats to Malaysia while the Bay of Bengal is calm up until the end of March.

Bangladesh's refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said "an internationally organised racket" was preying on desperation in the Rohingya camps.

"The refugees are lured by false promises. They simply don't have any idea how dangerous these sea journeys can be," he told AFP.

People smugglers sent tens of thousands of Rohingya from the camps to Malaysia before Bangladesh launched a crackdown in 2015.

(AFP)

More For You

delhi-police-iStock

Police have arrested two people in connection with the incident, which took place on Tuesday. (Representational image: iStock)

British woman raped in Delhi after befriending accused on social media

A BRITISH woman was allegedly raped and molested by two men at a hotel in Delhi’s Mahipalpur area, police said on Thursday.

The woman had travelled from Goa to Delhi to meet one of the accused, a 24-year-old man from east Delhi, whom she had befriended on social media, officials said.

Keep ReadingShow less
pakistan train siege Reuters

An injured man, who was rescued from a train after it was attacked by separatist militants, is brought to a hospital for treatment in Quetta, Pakistan, March 13, 2025. (Photo: Reuters)

Pakistan train siege: Two-day rescue ends, at least 25 bodies retrieved

AT LEAST 25 bodies, including those of 21 hostages, were retrieved on Thursday following a deadly train siege by separatist gunmen in Pakistan, officials said. The retrieval came ahead of the first funerals for those killed in the attack.

Security forces said they rescued more than 340 passengers after a two-day operation that ended late on Wednesday.

Keep ReadingShow less
Overcrowded flat  leads to tragedy

Tower Hamlets landlords fined £90K for overcrowded flat linked to fatal fire

TWO Tower Hamlets landlords have been ordered to pay more than £90,000 after cramming up to 23 people into a small two-bedroom flat licensed for just three residents.

Sofina Begum, 52, and Aminur Rahman, 55, were sentenced at Snaresbrook crown court last Thursday (6) for multiple housing offences related to their fourth-floor property in Maddocks House, Shadwell.

Keep ReadingShow less
JLR-Tata-Getty

JLR had initially planned to manufacture more than 70,000 electric vehicles at the facility. (Photo: Getty Images)

JLR halts plan to build EVs at Tata’s India plant: Report

JAGUAR LAND ROVER (JLR) has put on hold plans to manufacture electric vehicles at Tata Motors’ upcoming £775 million factory in southern India, according to a news report.

The decision was influenced by challenges in balancing price and quality for locally sourced EV components, three of the sources said. They added that slowing demand for electric vehicles was also a factor.

Keep ReadingShow less
Leicester drug supplier Sarju Khushal jailed for 11 years over £2m operation

Sarju Khushal

Leicester drug supplier Sarju Khushal jailed for 11 years over £2m operation

A MAN who supplied controlled drugs on a ‘wholesale’ scale across Leicestershire has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Sarju Khushal, 30, was arrested in 2022 after investigations revealed he had been transporting drugs from Lancashire into the area.

Khushal, formerly of Hazeldene Road, Leicester, pleaded guilty to several charges, including the supply and conspiracy to supply class A drugs. He was sentenced at Leicester crown court last Thursday (6).

Keep ReadingShow less