Six bodies have been recovered after a boat carrying dozens of Rohingyas capsized in the Bay of Bengal close to Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar, an official said.

It also left an unknown number of people missing, Xinhua news agency reported.

Lieutenant Colonel S M Ariful Islam of the Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB) told Xinhua on Wednesday that “six bodies were recovered this morning”.

He could not tell when the boat capsized but guessed that it may have capsized “sometime yesterday (Tuesday)”.

On receipt of information, he said the BGB, Bangladesh’s Navy and Coast Guard rushed to the spot for rescue operations and to recover the bodies which were floating in the waters near Shah Porir Island, some 292 km from here.

Islam said there was no information about how many passengers of the sunken boat managed to swim ashore. He said usually Rohingya refugees come in small boats which can carry only 25-30 people.