…Stena Imperative’s Crewman Medevaced Due to Head Injury***
Four Rohingya Muslims, a man, woman and two children, drowned when a small wooden fishing boat carrying dozens of refugees fleeing ethnic violence in Myanmar capsized off the Bangladesh coast, police said on Tuesday.
“People living in the coastal strip south of the Bangladesh port of Cox’s Bazar fished 37 survivors out of the water and 11 have been admitted to hospital in a critical condition,’’ Mohammad Abul Khair, the officer in charge at Ukhiya police station said.
Abul Khair said that the boat had keeled over in choppy seas as rain fell.
According to survivors, they had paid 50,000 kyat (37 dollars) to be taken to Bangladesh.
They had abandoned their homes in Buthidaung, in the strife-torn north of Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Over 600,000 Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since the military in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar launched a counter-insurgency operation after attacks on security posts by Rohingya militants in August.
United Nations officials have described the Myanmar military’s action as “ethnic cleansing”, Myanmar has, however, denied it.
Many of the Rohingya refugees have made the precarious sea and river crossing to reach the safety of predominately Muslim Bangladesh, though dozens have drowned making the attempt.
In the meantime, a 21-year-old man was medevaced from the 49,777 dwt oil tanker Stena Imperative off the coast of Freeport, Texas on October 30.
According to the United States Coast Guard (USCG), the man was the captain of the tanker contacted the authorities in the morning hours on Monday to report that the seafarer was going in and out of consciousness after sustaining a head injury from a fall.
An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter aircrew was sent to medevac the injured crewman and transport him to Galveston Scholes Airport, where an emergency medical services personnel was at standby.
At the time of the report, the vessel was some 12 miles south of Freeport. AIS data provided by Marine Traffic shows that the 2016-built ship is currently at the Freeport anchorage.
Additional report from World Maritime News
