A boat carrying at least 70 Muslim Rohingya capsized and sank Sunday off the western coast of Myanmar. Only eight survivors have been found.
一艘搭載至少70名羅興亞穆斯林的船隻，週日在緬甸西岸外海翻覆沉沒。只發現8名生還者。
The boat was in the Bay of Bengal and headed for Bangladesh when it went down early Sunday, said Abdul Melik, who works for a humanitarian organization in the region.
這艘船週日稍早滅頂時位於孟加拉灣，朝著孟加拉前進，任職該區一個人道組織的麥利克說。
The incident comes after the United Nations warned that an annual and often deadly exodus of desperate people from Myanmar’s Rakhine state appears to have begun. The exodus usually kicks off in November, when seas begin to calm following the annual monsoon. As many as 1,500 people have fled in the last week.
這起事故發生在聯合國警告緬甸若開邦的絕望民眾，顯然已展開往往釀成死亡的年度逃亡潮之後。這類逃亡潮常於11月、年度雨季後海象開始平穩時拉開序幕。上週有多達1500人出逃。
In Sunday’s incident, Melik said the wooden boat, which was carrying at least 70 Rohingya from Ohn Taw Gyi village, left at around 3 a.m. and broke apart about four hours later. Women, children and babies were among those on board.
在週日的這起事故中，麥利克指出，這艘至少搭載70名來自翁道基村的羅興亞人的木船，約於凌晨3點離開，約4小時後船隻解體。船上有婦女、兒童與嬰兒。
Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million, has been gripped by sectarian violence in the last 18 months, leaving more than 240 people dead and causing 250,000 to flee from their homes. Most of the victims have been Rohingya, a long persecuted Muslim minority in the country, with Buddhist mobs chasing them down with machetes, iron chains and bamboo clubs.
緬甸，一個6000萬人口中主要為佛教徒的國家，過去18個月來一直籠罩在宗派暴力之中，造成逾240人死亡，25萬人逃離家園。大多數受害者是長期在這個國家中被壓迫的穆斯林少數族群羅興亞人，佛教暴民持開山刀、鐵鏈與竹棍追打他們。
