Cox’s Bazar: A boat packed with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state capsized late Sunday night near the coast of Bangladesh, leaving at least two people dead and scores missing, officials said.

Coast guard and border guard officials said the boat was overloaded with about 100 people when it sank in the mouth of the Naf river that separates Myanmar from its South Asian neighbour Bangladesh.

“It capsized near (the coastal village of) Galachar with nearly 100 people. We recovered two dead bodies. Two people were rescued alive,” area coast guard commander Alauddin Nayan told a news agency.

Nayan said some 40 people in the boat were adult Rohingya Muslims fleeing their villages in Rakhine.

“The rest were children,” he said, adding that the coast guard had launched a search and rescue operation.

Border guard boats rescued 11 more Rohingya including three women and two children after scouring the estuary of the Naf river, Abdul Jalil, a Border Guard Bangladesh official, told AFP.

“We spoke to several survivors. One of them said the boat was carrying on average 80-100 people including 30-35 males,” he said.

Since the boat capsized near the Myanmar side of the border, Jalil said many may have swum to the Rakhine coast.

The coast guard said the boat sank at around 10:00 pm (1600 GMT).

Local media quoted a survivor as saying the boat sank due to high waves and bad weather.