On a remote beach looking out onto the Bay of Bengal, a baby boy lies swaddled in cloth, his face smeared with wet sand. The bodies of nine more children and eight women lie alongside. Another woman and a child have already been buried.

The group, all Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, were found washed up on the shore on Thursday by villagers from Shah Porir Dwip island in Bangladesh, a short distance from the mouth of the Naf river that separates the two countries.

They died after two rickety boats capsized as they fled a Myanmar army counteroffensive that followed Rohingya insurgent attacks on security forces last week. Nearly 30,000 more Rohingyas have made the perilous crossing by boat or on foot into Bangladesh, while 20,000 more are stuck in no man's land at the border.