Bangladesh police have prevented 115 Rohingya refugees from being smuggled to Malaysia in rickety fishing boats, officials said Saturday, but no suspected traffickers were detained.
The group from the Kutupalong camp near Bangladesh's border with Myanmar -- the biggest refugee settlement in the world -- were stopped as they headed to boats in the Bay of Bengal.
The operation, which took place late Friday, was the latest in a series involving Rohingya refugees seeking to leave squalid camps for Malaysia, a more prosperous Muslim-majority nation.
"We stopped a convoy of 15 auto-rickshaws and rescued 50 men, 39 women and 26 children," Bangladeshi police officer Anwar Hossain told AFP. "But we could not catch any traffickers."