LANGKAWI: Rescued after days stranded on a Malaysian island, weak and shaken Iman Shorif recounted how he watched a child drown when their boat carrying migrants from Myanmar capsized. Iman, who is 18 and from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, survived last week’s shipwreck off the Thai-Malaysian coast that killed at least 26 people. He was picked up by a Malaysian rescue boat in a bay on Langkawi island, five days after the boat sank close to the maritime border between Thailand and Malaysia.
Speaking to journalists, Iman said the boat journey “started from Buthidaung”, a small township in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and had gone on “for five to six days” before it went down. When the boat sank, “I saw one death… it was a child, I saw him drowning,” said the visibly weak teenager.
Rescuer Mohd Zamri Abdul Ghani said Iman was spotted when he waved with a polystyrene board. “We were really moved when we found him… Because it’s already the fourth day” of the search mission, Zamri told journalists. — AFP
