Bangladeshi authorities said nine people had been rescued. One survivor told AFP the boat sank nearly 10 days ago, casting gloom over the fate of the missing.

“I now have 70-80 photos on my mobile phone from people asking for updates on the victims,” 40-year-old Rafiqul Islam, one of the survivors, told AFP on Wednesday.

Islam, who sustained burn injuries as oil spilled from the trawler, said he was lured by traffickers who promised him a job in Malaysia.

The Rohingya on board the boat were likely leaving huge camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where more than a million refugees forced to flee war-torn Myanmar’s Rakhine state live in squalid conditions.

Rakhine state has been the scene of fierce fighting between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic minority rebel group.