Migrant Boat Disaster off the Malaysia-Thailand Border (2025)

The Malaysia-Thailand Border Maritime Disaster is a sea accident that occurred on 9 November 2025 north of Langkawi Island in Malaysia and off the coast of Ko Tarutao Island in Thailand, resulting in the sinking of a migrant vessel carrying Rohingya Muslims who had departed from Rakhine State in Myanmar. At least 26 people lost their lives and dozens remain missing.

^{Infographic likely showing the area where the migrant vessel sank – (Anadolu Agency)}

The Royal Malaysian Police and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) announced on 9 November 2025 that their search and rescue operations off Langkawi had rescued six people and recovered the body of a Rohingya woman. The coordinated efforts by Thai and Malaysian authorities led to an increase in the death toll in the following days.

As of 11 November, the MMEA reported that 13 people had been rescued and 21 bodies recovered, with 12 found in Malaysian waters and nine in Thai waters. By 12 November, the number of rescued individuals had risen to 14 and the death toll to 26. It was announced that search and rescue operations would continue for seven days despite adverse weather conditions.

Following the incident, the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency issued a statement indicating that migrants of Myanmar nationality had been detected off Langkawi and were assessed to have been drifting from a vessel that sank three days earlier near the Thailand-Malaysia border.

MMEA Director Laksamana Pertama Romli Mustafa reported that on the morning of 9 November, the vessel MV Hong Linh 1 rescued three people from the sea, and the same day the PETIR 81 patrol boat located the body of a woman. During the day, additional rescues were made in different areas: a Bangladeshi man, a Myanmar woman, and four more male migrants. In total, 11 individuals were identified, including one deceased.

Mustafa stated that the sunken vessel had departed from Buthidaung in Myanmar with a group of 300 people. The Malaysian government emphasized that unauthorized entries into its waters would not be tolerated and highlighted that the incident had both humanitarian and national security dimensions. The operations were conducted under Operation Guard 5.0 with the participation of the Royal Malaysian Navy, Maritime Police, and the Immigration Department.

Malaysian police reported that among the rescued individuals were nationals of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Of the six rescued, three were Myanmar citizens, two were Rohingya, and one was a Bangladeshi citizen.

It was determined that the migrants had originally set out from Myanmar aboard a large vessel but were transferred to three smaller boats as they approached the border region. The sinking occurred during this transfer. Langkawi Police Chief Khairul Azhar Nuruddin stated that the boats had departed from Rakhine State two weeks earlier and had split into two separate vessels during the journey. Some of the migrants originated from coastal areas of Myanmar, while others came from the Cox’s Bazar camps in Bangladesh.

According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), from the beginning of 2025 through November, more than 5,100 Rohingya migrants had left Myanmar and Bangladesh, with approximately 600 people either missing at sea or found dead.

The Rohingya have long been denied citizenship rights and subjected to discrimination in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State. Since the military coup in 2021, escalating conflict has driven large numbers of civilians, particularly women and children, to attempt sea crossings to seek refuge in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

It has been reported that around 1.3 million Rohingya live in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where living conditions have deteriorated due to declining international aid. Chris Lewa, Director of the Arakan Project, noted that at the end of October 2025, numerous Rohingya boats had departed from Bangladesh, with journeys to Malaysian waters taking between seven and ten days.