By Serajul Quadir
DHAKA (Reuters) - A Bangladesh coastguard and navy team rescued 116 Malaysia-bound migrants on Tuesday, including several children, from a boat that had been abandoned by its crew in the Bay of Bengal, the coastguard said.
Coastguard Station Commander Dickson Chowdhury said the migrants were taken into police custody after the Thai-owned boat was discovered near St Martin's Island, off the coast of Myanmar. Twenty-two of those on board were Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, and the rest were Bangladeshis.
Malaysia, one of Southeast Asia's wealthier economies, has long been a magnet for illegal immigrants. Together with Indonesia, it is experiencing a huge surge in boat people from Bangladesh and Myanmar after Thailand, usually the destination of choice for people-smugglers, announced a crackdown on trafficking.
Separately, Bangladeshi authorities said police killed an alleged trafficker in a gunfight on Tuesday in the southeastern city of Cox's Bazar, and seized illegal firearms and ammunition. Two police officers were wounded.
Including that incident, police have shot dead five traffickers in the coastal city in the last five days, and arrested at least seven in Cox's Bazar and Chittagong.
About 12,000 of the mostly stateless Rohingya have left the western Myanmar state of Rakhine since Oct. 15, said Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, which tracks migration across the Bay of Bengal.
Thousands of Rohingya boat people who have left Myanmar in the past several months have yet to reach their destinations, say relatives and an advocacy group for the persecuted minority, raising fears their boats have been prevented from reaching shore.
Bangladeshi authorities have saved more than 600 human trafficking victims from Myanmar and Bangladesh in sea rescues since last November.