A BOAT carrying 150 Rohingya refugees which has been drifting without power, food or water for two weeks needs urgent help, the United Nations said yesterday.

A number of passengers, including children, have already died, according to people on board the boat in the Andaman Sea in south-east Asia.

The small fishing boat, which has little shelter, left southern Bangladesh last month and has been at sea for more than three weeks after the engine failed a few days after departure.

It is believed that those on board are trying reach Malaysia, but the boat has drifted hundreds of miles off course into Indian waters.

“We are dying here,” one refugee said, after making contact with an activist in Bangladesh through a satellite phone.

They said that the passengers have not eaten in over a week.

No nearby nations have yet responded to the UN call.

At least five boats carrying Rohingya migrants are known to have left Myanmar in the past two months.

On Sunday evening, a boat carrying more than 100 people was rescued by Sri Lanka off its northern coast, according to the country’s navy.

The group included children and four people were taken to hospital to treat what a navy spokesman called “minor sickness.”

Yesterday, 10 migrants were pulled out from a freezing river on Croatia’s border with Bosnia.

Police were alerted that a group of people were stuck in a flooded area around the Sava after their small boat had ruptured.

Last week, six Afghan men were also found at the same location, which authorities have said is dangerous and full of debris that can damage small boats.