KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 — An estimated 50,000 Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim migrants attempt a perilous sea voyage to Malaysia every year, in a bid to escape poverty and persecution in their homelands, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

The report claimed that nearly 250,000 people have made the journey via the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea over the past 10 years, boarding rickety smugglers’ boats operated by a multi-million dollar smuggling network that extorts ransom from their victims’ families.

In the first quarter of this year alone, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that around 25,000 Bangladeshis and Rohingya have boarded such vessels, double the number over the same period in 2014.

The UNHCR added that 300 are believed to have died while out at sea.

A Bangladeshi migrant quoted by the Journal claimed that migrants who make the voyage do so with barely any food or water and are only delivered to their destination after their families pay ransom.

“Whoever you think you are, you forget it on the boats. They will kick, punch and starve it out of you,” Joynal Abidin, 23, told the New York-based newspaper.

Joynal, an unemployed school dropout from Chittagong in southern Bangladesh, said he jumped at the opportunity when a smuggler offered to take him to Malaysia for 100,000 takas (RM4,600).

The deal, however, landed him and around 200 other Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar on a boat meant for no more than 20 people, and were made to survive on one cup of rice a day.

The six armed smugglers on board — one Bangladeshi, two Myanmar nationals and three Thai men — also conducted strip searches to relieve migrants of everything from money to identity documents and shoes, and carried out body-cavity searches on anyone suspected of concealing mobile phone SIM cards.

Though the boat reached Thailand’s coast after two weeks, Joynal said they were kept at sea for 31 days as the smugglers claimed the Thai border was “hot” due to military activity.

It was only after his father sold a piece of land to pay the smugglers 250,000 takas was Joynal brought overland into Malaysia, ending up as an undocumented migrant and bound by the smugglers’ network to secure work and evade Malaysian authorities.

An estimated 6,000 to 20,000 migrants fleeing ethnic persecution in Myanmar and poverty in Bangladesh are currently adrift in the Andaman Sea and the Straits of Malacca, after having been abandoned by their traffickers with little food or water.

The United Nations has labelled the situation a massive humanitarian disaster.

Reports from foreign media crews that have caught up with the packed vessels say the migrants are starving and desperate for help, having gone with very little food and water over the months they have been at sea.

Most were thought to be headed here, but after more than 1,000 migrants came ashore in Malaysia and Indonesia in the past week, both countries have declared their intention to turn away any more boats carrying fleeing Myanmar and Bangladesh natives.

Putrajaya had initially stated that it turn away any seaworthy boat carrying the migrants from Malaysian waters, adding that it does not recognise their refugee status.

The federal government’s position irked Malaysians, who have since launched efforts to gather food and medical supplies to distribute to the refugees adrift at sea.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said yesterday that “necessary actions” are being taken for the refugees that were of international and regional importance.

It is however unclear if these steps include allowing the boats to dock, which Putrajaya previously said it would not permit.