At least a dozen people are dead after an overcrowded boat carrying Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar capsized off the coast of Bangladesh.Michael Sullivan, reporting on NPR's Morning Edition, says that the majority of the dead are children and at least 30 other people are still missing.The accident occurred late Sunday near Shah Porir Dwip in Bangladesh's southern coastal district.More than a half-million Rohingya have fled Myanmar's western Rakhine State since Aug. 25, when a militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army — which is associated with the minority group — attacked a series of military outposts, prompting a brutal crackdown from soldiers. The United Nations has called the retaliatory attacks by Myanmar's military "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing." The Rohingya have long suffered persecution in predominately Buddhist Myanmar.Hala Jaber is spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. She tells NPR that the weather in the area has been bad."I can tell you, it's been raining non-stop, pelting down, not just rain, on and off for the last three four or five days. With strong winds," Jaber says. "These are small fishing boats. They've got like 60 to 70 persons on board and it takes one wave to turn it over."Jaber says several thousand refugees keep crossing into Bangladesh pretty much every day either by boat or by land. And there are reports of many thousands more massing on the Myanmar side waiting to cross when they can.Sullivan reports:
Boat Carrying Rohingya Refugees Capsizes Off Bangladesh
