THE bodies of 14 people have been found washed up on a beach in Myanmar, said police today, with a local rescue group saying some were Rohingya attempting to reach Malaysia.

An activist said the migrants had been travelling by boat from western Myanmar.

“Fourteen dead bodies were found, while 35 people, including the boat owners, were rescued,” said police spokesman Tun Shwe in Pathein, about 200km west of Yangon.

A Myanmar Rescue Organisation Pathein member who requested anonymity said the group found eight bodies yesterday, and all were from the Rohingya minority.

A local Rohingya activist said 12 women and two boys had died.

Their boat had been carrying people from the towns of Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe in Rakhine state, added the activist, who also requested anonymity.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since 2017, after a military crackdown that refugees said included mass killings and rape.

Those still in Myanmar are widely seen as interlopers from Bangladesh and denied citizenship, many rights and access to services.

Hundreds of Rohingya make perilous, months-long journeys by sea to other parts of Southeast Asia every year.

They usually favour relatively affluent Malaysia, but also often end up in Indonesia. – AFP, May 23, 2022.