When the Myanmar navy seized a boat used by people smugglers last week, it announced that the 200 people found aboard were mostly Bangladeshis seeking better economic prospects in Southeast Asia.

The message was clear — that very few of the people on the boat, and by extension in the wave of Asian boat people drifting on the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, were members of Myanmar's Rohingya minority. Myanmar denies discriminating against the Rohingya or that they are fleeing persecution.

But in interviews with Reuters, people who were on the boat said between 150 to 200 Rohingya were aboard at one point. Many were quietly whisked away by the traffickers in the week before the navy brought the ship to shore, they said. The number is far larger than what Reuters reported previously.