COX’S BAZAR (AFP) – Bangladesh has announced it wants to send more than 80,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal after sealing an agreement with the United Nations.
Some 19,000 of the Muslim refugees from Myanmar have already relocated from crowded camps on the mainland to Bhashan Char island, despite concerns raised by aid groups, officials said.
Bangladesh refugee commissioner Shah Rezwan Hayat told AFP that tens of thousands more would go once the monsoon storms that batter the Bay of Bengal each year end in November.
“We are aiming to relocate some 81,000 (Rohingya) to Bhashan Char by the end of February to complete the 100,000 quota,” he told AFP.
The 53 square kilometer (20 square mile) island has been formed by tidal silt deposits.
On top of the inhospitable weather, the island is 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Bangladesh mainland and some Rohingya groups say people were forced to go there.
About 850,000 Rohingya are packed into camps along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. Most fled a Myanmar military clampdown in 2017 that the UN says could be genocide.
While a Bangladesh security intelligence agency is responsible for relocating the refugees, the government denies that any coercion has been used.
Still, several hundred Rohingya have fled Bhashan Char only to be detained on other islands or in coastal villages. Dozens died after a fishing boat packed with Rohingya trying to flee the island sank in August.
The UN had expressed doubts about the relocations. But Bangladesh and UN officials said a deal has been agreed to give the UN a role in providing humanitarian assistance and monitoring conditions on the island.
“We can confirm that the UN will sign a memorandum of understanding with the government to protect Rohingya refugees in Bhashan Char on Saturday,” a spokesperson for UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, told AFP.
Amnesty International raised new concerns over the relocations and highlighted the attempts made by refugees on the island to get away again.
“Some refugees have drowned at sea and many are either being arrested, detained, or forcibly returned to the island,” Saad Hammadi, Amnesty’s South Asia campaigner, told AFP.
He said Bangladesh, the UN and donor countries should “develop a rights-respecting policy and ensure the participation of Rohingya refugees in decisions that affect their lives.”