More than 60 people are presumed dead after a boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized, the United Nations migration agency has said.

“Twenty-three people have been confirmed dead … 40 are missing and presumed drowned,” a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) told reporters in Geneva. Survivors of the accident told IOM staff that the boat was carrying about 80 people, including 50 children, escaping weeks of bloodshed in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and seeking the safety of neighbouring Bangladesh.

The boat overturned on Thursday in rough waters off Bangladesh, with witnesses and survivors saying it sank metres from the shore as it was lashed by torrential rain and strong winds. “Survivors described being at sea all night, having no food,” the IOM spokesman said. “The total fatality toll will be in the range of 60,” he said, updating a previous toll of 19. Bodies, including children and babies, continued to float to the shoreline on Friday. “They drowned before our eyes. Minutes later, the waves washed the bodies to the beach,” said Mohammad Sohel, a shopkeeper in Bangladesh.(theguardian)…[+]