DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh will start
relocating Rohingya Muslims to a flood-prone island off its coast next month as
several thousand refugees have agreed to move, a government official said on
Sunday.
Dhaka wants to move 100,000 refugees to
Bhasan Char – a Bay of Bengal island hours by boat from the mainland – to ease
overcrowding in its camps at Cox’s Bazar, home to more than 1 million Rohingya
Muslims who have fled neighbouring Myanmar.
“We want to start relocation by early next
month,” Mahbub Alam Talukder, the Relief and Repatriation Commission chief based
in Cox’s Bazar, told Reuters, adding that “the refugees will be shifted in
phases”.
Some human rights groups have expressed
concern over that plan because the island is remote and prone to devastation
from cyclones. Many refugees oppose the move, which some human rights experts
fear could spark a new crisis.
DW News: Bangladesh plans to relocate
Rohingyas to 'refugee island' https://youtu.be/6FvaBN1ClZ8
Densely populated Bangladesh has been
grappling with large refugee numbers, with local communities turning hostile
towards Rohingya after a second failed bid to send thousands back to Myanmar in
August.
The number of refugees in Cox’s Bazar has
swelled since August 2017, when a Myanmar military-led crackdown that U.N.
investigators have said was conducted with “genocidal intent” prompted some
730,000 Rohingya to flee.
A U.N. human rights investigator who visited
in January said she feared a new crisis if Rohingya were taken to the island.
“There are a number of things that remain
unknown to me even following my visit, chief among them being whether the
island is truly habitable,” said Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on
human rights in Myanmar.
Shah Kamal, secretary of Bangladesh’s
Disaster Management Ministry, said the government was in talks with U.N.
agencies to move the refugees to Bhasan Char, which it has been developing for
the past three years.
“There is no reason to be concerned about
floods because we have built storm surge embankment, with all other
facilities,” he said.
“No one will be moved there against their
will.”
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“Rohingya must return to their home with
their full Rights”
DG #R4R & researcher of #RohingyaCrisis
@mir_sidiquee says “they (Myanmar) are denying #Rohingyas willingly for long
term plan to drive out the existing #Rohingyas – instead of bring back the
escaped, #genocide victims about 1 million into #Bangladesh - from their home /
ancestral land.”Read: https://t.co/bZtb7EDgWB
Don’t forget to reach here: https://t.co/yY28vR35fZ to know about
inhumane of Myanmar against Rohingya.
@mir_sidiquee is a Human Rights
Activist, DG of R4R (Rohingya Human Rights Initiative) and researcher of
Rohingya Crisis