DHAKA • Bangladesh is under "no obligation" to shelter 81 Rohingya Muslim refugees adrift for almost two weeks in the Andaman Sea and being assisted by neighbouring India, said Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen.

India's coast guard found the survivors and eight dead crammed on a fishing boat and was trying to arrange for Bangladesh to take them, Indian officials said on Friday.

While India was providing them with food and water, it was not planning to take them ashore.

But Mr Momen told Reuters late on Friday that Bangladesh expects India, the closest country, or Myanmar, the Rohingyas' country of origin, to accept them. "They are not Bangladesh nationals and, in fact, they are Myanmar nationals. They were found 1,700km away from the Bangladesh maritime territory and therefore we have no obligation to take them," said Mr Momen, who is in the United States.

"They were located 147km away from Indian territory, 324km away from Myanmar," he said by phone, adding that other countries and organisations should take care of the refugees.

Indian Foreign Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

The refugees have been drifting in international waters after leaving southern Bangladesh on Feb 11 in the hope of reaching Malaysia.

The boat, which sailed from the massive Cox's Bazar refugee camp, was carrying 56 women, eight girls, 21 men and five boys.

India did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, which spells out refugee rights and state responsibilities to protect them. It also does not have a law protecting refugees, although it currently hosts more than 200,000, including some Rohingyas.

More than one million Rohingya refugees from predominantly Buddhist Myanmar are living in teeming camps in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, including hundreds of thousands who fled after Myanmar's military conducted a deadly crackdown in 2017.

Traffickers often lure Rohingya refugees with promises of work in South-east Asian countries like Malaysia.

REUTERS