Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number Rohingya migrants from Burma adrift in the Andaman Sea.

The exact figure is unknown. From 8,000 migrants originally estimated to be at sea in late May, the latest figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) indicate that around 1,200 to 1,300 remain unaccounted for. It is likely that some of these will have returned, while others may have disembarked without UNHCR or other authorities’ knowledge. We continue to monitor the situation closely and urge countries in the region not to turn away boats in distress.