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       U.N. Says Hundreds of Refugees Are Adrift in Andaman Sea

       Two boats carrying about 400 people have been at sea for weeks, the U.N. refugee agency said, calling on nearby governments to rescue them.

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       Members of the Rohingya ethnic group reached Aceh Province in Indonesia by boat last month. Many Rohingya make the dangerous journey across the Andaman Sea from Bangladesh or Myanmar each year. Credit...Rahmat Mirza/Associated Press

       By Mike Ives

       Dec. 5, 2023

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       The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday that about 400 people were believed to be stranded on two boats adrift in the Andaman Sea, calling on nearby governments to help rescue them.

       Most of them are believed to be members of the Rohingya ethnic group, a persecuted Muslim minority, the U.N. agency said. More than a million Rohingya have fled state persecution and massacre in Myanmar in recent years and now live in desperate conditions in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Thousands more have made high-risk journeys across the Andaman Sea in rickety boats, often headed for countries in Southeast Asia.

       Babar Baloch, a spokesman in Bangkok for the agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the two boats’ precise locations were unknown and that it was not clear which country they had departed from, but that they appeared to have been at sea for at least two weeks.

       He said the agency knew about the boats based on conversations with relatives of people aboard and human rights workers who had spoken with them by telephone, but that it did not have details about the passengers’ conditions.

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       Mike Ives is a reporter for The Times based in Seoul, covering breaking news around the world. More about Mike Ives

       A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 6, 2023, Section A, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Rohingya Refugees Adrift, U.N. Says . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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