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Fourteen people survived, while 18 others remain missing, as
search and rescue operations continued for a second day, the
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said in a
statement.
Of the 18 dead, 11 were found on Wednesday. All those aboard the
boat were from Indonesia.
Wednesday's accident was the latest in a string of disasters
recorded in the waterways between Indonesia and Malaysia in
recent years, often involving overloaded boats ferrying
labourers seeking work in Malaysian factories and plantations.
According to rights group Migrant CARE, between 100,000 and
200,000 Indonesians travel illegally to Malaysia each year for
work, many of them recruited by trafficking gangs.
Identification documents recovered showed that most of the
people onboard the capsized boat were from the Indonesian island
of Lombok, the country's Migrant Workers Protection Agency said
in a statement.
Of the survivors, one woman was in critical condition due to
dehydration and has been hospitalised, the agency said, adding
that an investigation into the accident was underway.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Additional reporting by Agustinus
Beo Da Costa in Jakarta; Editing by Ed Davies, Martin Petty)
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