Bangladesh begins to lead Rohingya to distant island amid criticism | Rohingya News

More than 2,000 Rohingya will be taken to the Bhashan Char island in the Bay of Bengal amid protests for forced relocations.

Bangladesh has started moving again Rohingya refugees To an island prone to the remote and flood-prone Gulf of Bengal, despite criticism from human rights and aid groups, some say they have relocated against their will.

Deputy Commissioner for Refugees Moozzem Hossain said on Wednesday that he would take 2,000 more people to Bhashan Char Island this week, where Bangladesh finally wants to relocate 100,000 of the one million Rohingya refugees.

“Army boats will be brought to the island on Thursday,” Hossain told AFP news agency.

There are about 850,000 of the Rohingya Muslim minority wrapped in camps Bangladesh and Myanmar crossed the border, and most of them fled the Myanmar military in 2017, according to the United Nations. it is genocide.

Bangladesh has been praised for taking in refugees who crossed the border, but has had little success in finding sustainable housing.

Among the more than 19,000 Rohingya refugees who have already been relocated to Bhashan Char, hundreds have been arrested in coastal villages after fleeing the island. At least 11 people were killed in August after a fishing boat carrying fugitives capsized.

Bhashan Char, located 60 km (37 miles) from the mainland of Bangladesh, is in the middle of an area that has been hit by powerful cyclones that have killed a million people in the last 50 years.

The government delayed the deployment of more refugees to the island earlier this year as it was putting the finishing touches on a storm wall around its 53-square-kilometer (20-square-kilometer) perimeter.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), he signed an agreement With the Bangladeshi authorities last month to provide assistance and protection to the island’s refugees.

Bill Frelick, director of refugee and migrant rights at Human Rights Watch, said the agreement with UNHCR “does not provide a free ticket for the forced relocation of Rohingya refugees.”

Bangladesh says all relocations are voluntary, but several refugees have said they are forced to move there.

A leader of the Rohingya community, who spoke on condition of anonymity with the AFP, said Bangladeshi authorities had told him and his members to provide each with a list of at least five families to relocate to.

A Rohingya woman said her name was put on the list without her permission and she did not want to relocate to the island.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said Rohingya leaders were being forced to persuade camp residents to go to Bhashan Char, including by confiscating their identity documents.

The observer has called on Bangladesh to stop further relocations until the freedom of movement of refugees is guaranteed.

‘Serious problems’

Alexander Matheou, director of the Asia-Pacific Federation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Moon Associations, said authorities are looking into the possibility of people traveling to the continent for limited periods, but that “serious problems” remain.

Matheou, who visited the site on Tuesday, told Reuters in a phone call that the island was “well-designed and organized in terms of housing” and had access to clean water, but that health services were “too basic to deal with.” large population ”and there was no established reference system on the peninsula.

He expressed concern that refugees could not move to and from the mainland to see their families.

“That really, really upsets people,” Matheou said, adding that the lack of freedom of movement will “undermine the success of the project” unless addressed.