The boat went missing on last night after it left Pauktaw township, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said (UNOCHA), adding there were an unknown number of missing as “they were traveling to another camp ahead of the cyclone”.
The BBC quoted Barbara Manzi, head of UNOCHA in Sittwe as saying that search-and-rescue operations were ongoing.
“It appears that this boat left the camp with the blessing of the authorities, before hitting rocks,” she said.
About 140,000 people displaced by communal violence last year are living in flimsy tents or makeshift housing across Rakhine, giving rise to fears that they are vulnerable to the cyclone, which is gathering strength in the Bay of Bengal.
The storm is moving slowly north along the coast of India and is expected to make landfall somewhere near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border on Thursday night (May 16), according to an update by Myanmar’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.
Local officials said Myanmar’s army had been deployed in preparation for the cyclone and to help relocate thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in low-lying coastal areas.
The IDPs at particular risk are mostly stateless Rohingya uprooted by deadly religious violence since June last year.
To follow the progress of the cyclone go here.