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The passengers were abandoned by their crew six days ago
Myanmar migrants on a boat stranded for a week in the Andaman Sea with no food or water say 10 people have died, while some are resorting to drinking urine.
The fishing boat, carrying about 350 people of the Muslim Rohingya minority, has been refused entry to Thailand.
Those on board told the BBC the crew abandoned them and disabled the engine. They said the bodies of those who had died were thrown overboard.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been turning away migrant boats.
‘Desperate sight’
Several thousand people are still believed to be stuck in boats off the coasts of Thailand and Malaysia.
Most are Rohingya Muslims who cannot go back to Myanmar, also known as Burma, where they are not recognised as citizens of the country and are regularly persecuted.
The BBC’s Jonathan Head reports from alongside the vessel off the southern coast of Thailand, off Koh Lipe, that it is a “desperate sight”.
He said: “People are calling out to us begging us for food and water.
“There are a lot of women and children on board. This is a very old-looking fishing boat that’s completely packed with people.
“We can see there are actually people drinking their own urine from bottles. We’ve been throwing them bottles of water – everything we’ve got on board.”
The passengers were abandoned by their crew six days ago
He said blankets had been tied up to try and provide some shelter from the sun. The average maximum temperature is 34C.
The migrants – including 50 women and 84 children – said they had been at sea for three months.
Their situation became critical when their crew abandoned them without a working engine six days ago anchored near the Thai-Malaysian border.
BBC