These viral photos of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea after being denied entry, are from Thailand, not Saudi Arabia
A post featuring several photos is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) with the claim that it shows visuals from Rohingya refugees stranded at sea after being denied entry by Saudi Arabia. Let’s verify the claim made in the post in this article.
Claim: The photos show Rohingya refugees stranded at sea after being denied entry by Saudi Arabia.
Fact: The photos do not show Rohingya refugees denied entry by Saudi Arabia. They are from a 14 May 2015 incident near Koh Lipe, Thailand, where a Rohingya boat drifting for days with several deaths reported was given food supplies after being refused entry by Thailand and Malaysia while trying to reach Malaysia. International media reports from May 2015 also confirm these visuals relate to Southeast Asia, not Saudi Arabia. Additionally, we did not find any recent reports of Saudi Arabia denying entry or leaving Rohingya refugees stranded at sea. Multiple media reports from 2019 confirm that Saudi Arabia deported Rohingya people to Bangladesh that year. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To verify the viral photos, we ran a Google Lens search and found that the first image appeared on AFP Photos, while the second and third images were available on the stock website Getty Images. The descriptions of these photos revealed that they all show the same 14 May 2015 incident near Koh Lipe, Thailand, where a boat packed with Rohingya migrants—many of them children—was found drifting for days, with several passengers reported dead, and Thai authorities dropping food supplies to the stranded group.
We then did a Google search using relevant keywords and found multiple international media reports from May 2015 featuring the same visuals (here, here, here, here, and here). According to these reports, a boat carrying around 300 Rohingya migrants, including women and children, was found drifting off Koh Lipe, Thailand, after a two-month journey during which several people had died. As per these media reports, the migrants, who were fleeing persecution in Myanmar, were trying to reach Malaysia, but Thai and Malaysian authorities refused them entry, providing only food and water. The crisis occurred amid renewed violence in northern Rakhine State, overcrowded camps with restricted movement, and ongoing human trafficking crackdowns in Southeast Asia. The UN and rights groups warned of a growing humanitarian disaster and urged regional governments to rescue the stranded migrants. This confirms that the viral photos have no connection to Saudi Arabia.
We did not find any recent reports of Saudi Arabia denying entry to Rohingya refugees or leaving them stranded at sea. However, multiple media reports (here, here, and here) confirm that Saudi Arabia deported Rohingya people to Bangladesh in 2019. At the time, Saudi authorities sent back Rohingyas who had been detained for years, many of whom had entered the country using Bangladeshi passports obtained informally. Because Rohingya identity is not officially recognised, officials often recorded them under other nationalities, which further complicated their status and led to Bangladesh accepting some deportees.
To sum up, these viral photos of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea after being denied entry are from Thailand, not Saudi Arabia.