After spending weeks at sea in a flimsy boat, dozens of Rohingya migrants have been discovered on an Indonesian beach.
According to the UN refugee agency, at least 180 more Rohingya who escaped Bangladesh last month are believed to have perished at sea.
As a result of their deaths, 2022 would rank among the bloodiest years for members of the Muslim minority ethnic group, who endure persecution in Myanmar and appalling living circumstances in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
The "unseaworthy" boat vanished at sea and is most likely to have sunk, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
"Relatives have lost contact," the agency wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "Those last in touch presume all are dead."
On Christmas Day, locals informed the authorities that a group of 58 emaciated and starving men had washed ashore in Aceh province, which is located near the northwest coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
On Indra Patra beach in Ladong village, their boat made landfall.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees who left Myanmar when its military started a brutal crackdown in 2017 are among the more than one million migrants living in overcrowded camps in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
Most Rohingya Muslims are refused citizenship and viewed as illegal immigrants in Myanmar, a country with a majority of Buddhists.
This year, it is already believed that close to 200 Rohingya are either dead or missing at sea.
According to some estimates, 2013 was the bloodiest year ever for Rohingya refugees.
In the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, which is located between Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka, 900 Rohingya people perished or went missing that year.
An estimated 700 individuals died or went missing in 2014.
According to estimates from rights organizations, the number of Rohingya who has escaped Bangladesh in boats has surged five-fold in the last year.
In a brutal coup last year, the military seized power in Myanmar and drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Security personnel in Myanmar have been charged with widespread rapes, deaths, and home burnings of Rohingya people.
