This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
Sixteen Myanmar nationals are missing and several drowned after a boat capsized on the Mekong River between Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, witnesses told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.
The boat was carrying as many as 50 undocumented migrant workers traveling from Tonpheung, in Laos’ Bokeo province, to Tachileik township 10 km (6.2 miles) to the west in Myanmar’s Shan state, according to a Myanmar national living in Laos.
It was passing near the Golden Triangle Economic Zone port on the Lao side of the river on Monday night when it capsized, he said.
“The boat stopped in the middle of the river and the driver lost control. It was swept away by the current and overturned,” said the Myanmar citizen who did not want to be identified as talking to the media.
“The Mekong River has strong current, but it’s much worse with the heavy rain these days.”
About 20 passengers were rescued and a few bodies were recovered, the Myanmar citizen said, adding that Lao authorities and some aid groups were searching for the missing.
RFA obtained a video shot from the riverbank in which the heads of around 20 people can be seen poking above the water as they are swept along. Observers can be heard shouting words of warning, while three or four boats maneuver into position to try to rescue them. A few of the people in the river appear to be clinging to pieces of floating debris.
‘Many more would have died’
A person who witnessed the incident from the riverbank in Bokeo province told RFA Lao that all of the passengers on the boat were Myanmar nationals and that several of them were rescued by Chinese nationals in a nearby vessel.
“The people on the Chinese boat threw rubber floats to them; if they hadn’t, many more would have died,” said the witness, who also spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “At that time, I saw only people swimming, not the boat [as the boat had sunk].”
The witness said that the boat that capsized “is not a boat for passengers,” and was typically used to transport fruits and vegetables.
“I saw two people hugging each other as they floated down the river — they were able to grab a man’s hand [who was on a rescue boat] for a brief moment, but slipped away,” he said.
An official from Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, across the water from Bokeo, told RFA that she was in the area at the time and saw around five local and tourist boats trying to rescue people from the water.
RFA was not able to contact Lao authorities in the area and could not confirm how many people died in the accident
Authorities on the Myanmar side of the border had not been informed about the accident and the search for victims on the Lao side, a relief worker in Myanmar said.
Work in the triangle
Myanmar nationals who work in Laos have to return home occasionally because they did not have long-term visas for Laos, Myanmar citizens in Laos said.
The Golden Triangle refers to the area where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet and for decades it was known for opium growing and smuggling.
More recently it has become notorious for methamphetamine production. The neighbors have tried to promote trade and tourism with economic zones, while casinos and online scam centers have also proliferated on the Lao and Myanmar sides of the Mekong.
The Lao government cracked down on illegal call centers in its economic zone last month, launching raids alongside Chinese law enforcers on Aug. 12, and ordering all illegal businesses to close by Aug. 25. Many of the online scam centers in Southeast Asia target victims in China.
An official from Tonpheung in Laos told RFA on Tuesday that most of the passengers on the capsized boat “were former workers of the call centers” that were shut down in recent weeks.
“They were going back to Myanmar,” he said. “They couldn’t stay in the [economic] zone any longer.”
Many Myanmar nationals have fled to Laos since Myanmar’s military overthrew an elected government in a 2021 coup, triggering bloody turmoil and crippling the Myanmar economy.
In May, 17 Myanmar workers accused of being anti-junta activists and holding fake resident permits were deported from Laos and handed to junta authorities.
Myanmar shares a more than 2,400-km (1,500-mile) border with Thailand and a 230-km (143-mile) border with Laos.
RFA called the Myanmar embassy in Vientiane and the Lao embassy in Yangon for comment on the accident but neither responded by the time of publication.
