About 250 Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshis were feared missing after their boat capsized in the Andaman Sea, the United Nations’ refugee and migration agencies said on Tuesday.

The persons include women and children. The trawler had departed from the border town of Teknaf in southern Bangladesh and was on its way to Malaysia. It reportedly sank because of heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration stated.

It was unclear when the accident had occurred. The whereabouts of the persons on Wednesday were also unclear.

Hundreds of thousands of persons from the ethnic Rohingya community have been fleeing into Bangladesh since 2017 after a violent crackdown by the Myanmar government in the mid-2010s. More than a million Rohingya refugees are currently living in Bangladesh.

The incident reflects the “dire consequences of protracted displacement and the absence of durable solutions” for the Rohingya community, the UN agencies said on Tuesday.

The violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has faded the community’s hopes of safe return in the near future, it said.

“Shrinking humanitarian assistance, challenging living conditions in refugee camps and limited access to education and livelihoods are pushing refugees to take such dangerous sea journeys in search of safety and opportunity,” the agencies added.