Ruma Paul, Clare Baldwin, Andrew R.C. Marshall
DHAKA/BHASAN CHAR/COX‘S BAZAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) -
Bangladesh is racing to turn an uninhabited and muddy Bay of Bengal island into
home for 100,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled a military crackdown in Myanmar,
amid conflicting signals from top Bangladeshi officials about whether the
refugees would end up being stranded there.
Floating Island: New Home For Rohingya Refugees
Emerges In Bay Of Bengal https://youtu.be/LNRFe1n8oTo
Also watch: Floating Island: New Home For Rohingya
Refugees Emerges In Bay Of Bengal https://youtu.be/IRmiGS6jckw
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Monday
that putting Rohingya on the low-lying island would be a “temporary
arrangement” to ease congestion at the camps in Cox’s Bazar, refuge for nearly
700,000 who have crossed from the north of Myanmar’s Rakhine state since the
end of August last year.
However, one of her advisers told Reuters that, once
there, they would only be able to leave the island if they wanted to go back to
Myanmar or were selected for asylum by a third country.
“It’s not a concentration camp, but there may be some
restrictions. We are not giving them a Bangladeshi passport or ID card,” said
H.T. Imam, adding that the island would have a police encampment with 40-50
armed personnel.
British and Chinese engineers are helping prepare the
island to receive refugees before the onset of monsoon rains, which could bring
disastrous flooding to ramshackle camps further south that now teem with about
1 million Rohingya. The rains could start as early as late April.
Hasina’s adviser, Imam, said the question of selecting
Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar to move to the island was not finalised, but it could
be decided by lottery or on a volunteer-basis.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in
a statement: “We would emphasise that any relocation plan involving refugees
would need to be based on and implemented through voluntary and informed
decisions.”
FRENETIC CONSTRUCTION
Humanitarian agencies criticized the plan to bring Rohingya
to the island when it was first proposed in 2015. Aid workers who spoke to
Reuters said they remain seriously concerned that the silt island is vulnerable
to frequent cyclones and cannot sustain livelihoods for thousands of people.
But work on the project has accelerated in recent months,
according to architectural plans and two letters from the Bangladesh navy to
local government officials and contractors seen by Reuters.
A year ago, when Reuters journalists visited Bhasan Char
- whose name means “floating island” - there were no roads, buildings or
people.
Returning on Feb. 14, they found hundreds of laborers
carrying bricks and sand from ships on its muddy northwest shore. Satellite
images now show roads and what appears to be a helipad.
Floating Island, which emerged from the silt only about
20 years ago, is about 30 km (21 miles) from the mainland. Flat and
shape-shifting, it regularly floods during June-September. Pirates roam the
nearby waters to kidnap fishermen for ransom, residents of nearby islands say.
The plans show metal-roofed, brick buildings raised on
pylons and fitted with solar panels. There will be 1,440 blocks, each housing
16 families.
CHINESE AND BRITISH COMPANIES
Chinese construction company Sinohydro - better known for
building China’s Three Gorges Dam - has begun work on a 13-km (8-mile)
flood-defence embankment for the $280-million project.
A Sinohydro engineer on Bhasan Char, reached by telephone
later, said the company had “confidentiality agreements” and that questions
about construction on the island should be referred to the Bangladesh
government.
HR Wallingford, a British engineering and environmental
hydraulics consultancy, is advising the project on “coastal stabilization and
flood protection measures”, the company told Reuters in a statement earlier
this month.
“The coastal infrastructure design is expected to include
a flood defense embankment protecting the development area to international
standards, set back from the shoreline,” it said. The company referred further
inquiries to the Bangladesh Navy.
Omar Waraich, Deputy South Asia Director for rights group
Amnesty International, said there was “no one in the humanitarian community we
spoke to who thought this was a good idea”.
“This is a silt island that only emerged into view
recently,” he said.
Residents of nearby Sandwip island, which is larger and
less remote, say monsoon storms regularly kill people, destroy homes and cut
contact with the mainland.
However, a senior member of the prime minister’s staff,
Director General Kabir Bin Anwar, said humanitarian organizations critical of
the plan were “absolutely wrong because they don’t understand the topography”
of Bangladesh.
The government was building cyclone shelters on the
island, he said, adding that there were salt-tolerant paddies and people living
there could fish or graze cows and buffalo.
Thengar Char (a) Bhasan Char
“We don’t need help from any foreign NGOs or local NGOs.
We can feed them,” he said.
Bangladeshis living on nearby islands are critical of
their government’s efforts for the Rohingya.
Belal Beg, 80, who was born on Sandwip island, said there
was resistance to settling Rohingya on Bhasan Char because huge numbers of
Bangladeshis are displaced by coastal erosion each year with no measures taken
to protect them.
“We should first care for our own people but the
government is deciding to give shelter to immigrants,” Beg said.
Many Rohingya also reject the idea of moving to an island
even further from Myanmar, which many of them have called home for generations.
Jahid Hussain, a Rohingya refugee at Chakmakul refugee
camp in Bangladesh, said he had fled Myanmar to save his life and would not
risk it by living on Bhasan Char. “I would rather die right here,” he said.
The latest unrest in Myanmar’s Rakhine state began on
Aug. 25, when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army
base, prompting an army counter-offensive that forced entire villages to flee.
They joined about 300,000 Rohingya already in Bangladesh, one of the world’s
poorest and most crowded nations, who had fled previous bouts of violence.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel peace laureate and leader of
Buddhist-majority Myanmar, has been heavily criticized by Western nations for
not speaking out against what the United States and the United Nations have
branded ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar denies that ethnic cleansing has taken place and
says it has been conducting legitimate operations against terrorists in
northern Rakhine.
Describing the island, Hasina told a news conference in
Dhaka that “from a natural point of view it is very nice” and said although the
initial plan was to put 100,000 people there, it had room for as many as 1
million.
For a graphic on 'A
remote home for Rohingya' http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/MYANMAR-ROHINGYA/010060Z21XP/index.html