KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian authorities launched a search on Sunday for 24 Rohingya refugees who went missing while trying to swim to shore from a boat off the resort island of Langkawi.

Malaysia has long been a favoured destination for Rohingya Muslims seeking a better life after escaping a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar and, more recently, refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Malaysia’s coastguard said 25 people had tried to swim to shore late on Saturday when their boat was near the west coast of the island but only one reached land.

Two boats and one aircraft were sent out on Sunday to scour an area of more than 100 square nautical miles, according to Mohamad Zawawi Abdullah, provincial director for the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA).

“We have relayed information to other rescue agencies and local fishing communities and will also inform the Thai authorities... to assist in the search,” Zawawi said in a statement.

Police detained the person who reached shore for questioning. They did not say what happened to the boat.

Zawawi said the 27-year-old named Nor Hossain was the sole survivor in the incident.

“Based on the information from police, the illegal Rohingya migrant had jumped off the boat that had 24 other people and that he was the only one who managed to swim to the shore safely,” he said.

Last month, 269 Rohingya were detained on arrival in Langkawi.

At the time, the head of the MMEA said the 269 were transferred from a larger “motherboat” on which dozens of people were believed to have died and were thrown into the sea over a four-month voyage.

Malaysia does not recognise refugee status. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said last month the country could not take in any more Rohingya, citing a struggling economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of the 700,000-plus Rohingya Muslims who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar three years ago have attempted to leave overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district on boats headed for Malaysia and neighbouring Indonesia.

Malaysia has stepped up maritime patrols since the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic in a bid to stop Rohingya boats from landing.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2020