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Global

Bay of Bengal people smuggling doubles in 2015 - UNHCR


    GENEVA (Reuters) - An estimated 25,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis boarded people smugglers' boats in the first three months of this year, twice as many in the same months of 2014, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

    "Based on survivor accounts, we estimate that 300 people died at sea in the first quarter of 2015 as a result of starvation, dehydration and abuse by boat crews,? it said.

    The smuggling route takes migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh to southern Thailand.

    (Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by John Stonestreet)