She fled home to escape violence. Now she's been lost at sea for two months

Over the past year, more women and girls have boarded rickety vessels to flee sexual violence within the camps, the UNHCR said -- a trend likely to continue as the coup across the border in Myanmar makes returning home an even more distant prospect.

At sea the next morning, the teenager used a satellite phone to call her mother, Gule Jaan, 43, to say she was heading for Malaysia on a small wooden boat, packed with 87 Rohingya refugees, including 65 women and girls. Some were fleeing what their families say is the increased risk of sexual assault and rape during the pandemic in the sprawling refugee camps of Cox's Bazar, in Bangladesh, home to more than 1 million displaced people.