Family of missing Rohingya footballer fear he is among 500 believed dead in Myanmar shipwrecks

Siraz Ullah, centre, clung on to a dream of being a professional football player. View image in fullscreen Siraz Ullah, centre, clung on to a dream of being a professional football player. Family of missing Rohingya footballer fear he is among 500 believed dead in Myanmar shipwrecks ‘I can’t tolerate this life,’ said the 24-year-old in his last voice message to his relatives. Attacked by the military, a rebel army and criminal gangs, Siraz Ullah risked all for a better future The fear was audible as he spoke, recording a message to his family, asking for their prayers. After pressing send, 24-year-old Siraz Ullah boarded a boat he hoped could deliver him from the violence and persecution surrounding him at home in Myanmar . Instead, Siraz is among 500 Rohingya refugees who have vanished at sea after setting sail for Malaysia in late June. “Please pray for me and for all the passengers. We are risking our lives, but there is nothing else we can do,” he said in the voice message. “I can’t tolerate this life.” Siraz had hoped that in Malaysia he might be able to pursue his dream of playing football professionally. But a month on, the boat is feared lost. Siraz’s last message showed he was aware of the dangers of a journey that thousands of Rohingya have taken this year – in April, 250 Rohingya died on a boat that capsized in the Andaman Sea. Decades of persecution and military violence have left an estimated 550,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar – from a population thought to be about 1.4 million a decade ago. More than 1 million Rohingya are now living as refugees in Bangladesh, confined to heavily policed camps. Criminals have been luring Rohingya from both places with promises of better lives in Malaysia, often subjecting people to abuse and extortion before cramming them on to boats ill-equipped for rough seas. View image in fullscreen Siraz Ullah, right, with his nephew Mumtaz. According to Mumtaz Ullah, Siraz’s nephew, the last time anyone in the family spoke to him was on 22 June. It was around that time that a boat first attempted to leave but had to turn back, departing again a few days later. “We don’t know whether he’s alive. Like many others, we are living in fear and uncertainty,” he said. “It feels as if we’ve been torn into pieces.” In recent days, there have been rumours that the boat may have been hijacked by rival traffickers but there has been no other news. It seems likely that Sirazwas on board one of two boats the UN believes capsized off the Myanmar coast , carrying 250 and 280 people respectively. He travelled willingly but a human rights researcher, who was not cleared by their organisation to speak to media, told the Guardian that other families say their relatives were kidnapped from parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh and held in detention camps until their families agreed to pay a ransom to the traffickers. Since the early 2000s a vast criminal network has operated between the Bay of Bengal and Malaysia, profiting from Rohin