A
document drawn up by the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN's food aid arm,
shows the agency has supplied the Bangladesh government with detailed plans –
including a timeline and budget – of how it could provide for thousands of
Rohingya transported to the island within weeks
The
United Nations is making plans to help Bangladesh relocate thousands of
Rohingya refugees to a remote island off its coast, documents seen by Reuters
show.
Dhaka
says transporting refugees to Bhashan Char – a Bay of Bengal island hours by
boat from the mainland – will ease chronic overcrowding in its camps at Cox's
Bazar, which are home to more than 1 million Rohingya, members of a Muslim
minority who have fled neighbouring Myanmar.
A
document drawn up by the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN's food aid arm,
shows the agency has supplied the Bangladesh government with detailed plans –
including a timeline and budget – of how it could provide for thousands of
Rohingya transported to the island within weeks. It stresses that any
relocation should be voluntary and done "in accordance with humanitarian
principles and code of conduct."
The
document, labelled as a "Concept of Operations" and dated March 12,
outlines how the organization and its partners "may facilitate the
identification, staging, forward movement, reception, and sustainment of
refugees" on Bhashan Char, estimating an initial appeal for donor funding
of between $8.6 and $19 million.
More
detailed operational planning would be needed it says, noting the Concept of
Operations had been "developed quickly and without the benefit of any
recent on-site assessment."
Gemma
Snowdon, communications officer for WFP in Cox's Bazar, said the organization
was part of "ongoing discussions" with the government over the future
of the refugee response.
"The
viability of safely relocating people to Bhashan Char needs to be thoroughly
assessed and WFP is investigating the potential operational needs, financial
costs, and challenges in several areas that we traditionally support in
emergencies: food security, emergency telecommunications and logistics,"
she said.
Refugee
influx
The
numbers of refugees in the Cox's Bazar camps have grown dramatically since
August 2017, when a Myanmar military-led crackdown that UN investigators have
said was conducted with "genocidal intent" prompted some 730,000
Rohingya to flee. Myanmar has denied almost all allegations of atrocities made
by refugees during what is says was a legitimate counter terrorism operation by
its security forces.
Dhaka is
struggling to cope with the influx and wants to start relocating thousands of
refugees to the island, which it says has been secured with flood defense embankments and cyclone shelters.
A senior
UN official told reporters in Dhaka on Thursday the organization welcomed the
fact the government had "taken steps to identify alternative
settlements."
"As
you also know if you have been to Kutapalong and the various camps in Cox's
Bazar area, it is clear that there is huge congestion," said Volker Turk,
Assistant High Commissioner for the UN refugee agency.
Liberation
War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque, who is also the chairman of Cabinet
Committee on Law and Order, told Reuters in an interview the government planned
to start moving refugees next month.
"We
are in talks with UN agencies and they have agreed," he said. "Now we
are working on other things like how to move them and other strategies. We are
the host country. We will decide where to keep them. And we are doing
everything to ensure their safety and security."
The
Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, Mohammad Abul Kalam told Reuters
preparations were "still going on" and the site was not ready.
Bhashan
Char, a flat and featureless island that emerged from the sea 20 years ago, has
never been inhabited.
Housing
with corrugated iron roofs and concrete floors and walls for about 70,000
people had been built, but there were only enough cyclone shelters for 17,000.
In Cox's
Bazar, local officials are compiling lists of the first refugees to be moved,
District Commissioner Mohammad Kamal Hossain told Reuters.
Source: Dhaka Tribune