Bangladesh begins relocating Rohingya to a remote island amid protests | Rohingya Stories

More than 2,000 Rohingya are due to be relocated to Bhashan Char Island in the Bay of Bengal, amid allegations of forced eviction.

Bangladesh has started moving again Rohingya refugees on a remote and flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, despite opposition from human rights groups and activists who say some were displaced without their consent.

Deputy Commissioner for Refugees Moozzem Hossain on Wednesday said another 2,000 people would be evacuated this week to the island of Bhashan Char, where Bangladesh seeks to repatriate 100,000 of Rohingya’s nearly one million Rohingya refugees.

“Ships will bring them to the island on Thursday,” Hossain told AFP.

About 850,000 of the few Muslim Rohingya are packed into camps on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, many of them have fled Myanmar military strikes in 2017 which the United Nations says will end. mass murder.

Bangladesh has been praised for taking refugee refugees who crossed the border but did not do well to find permanent housing.

Among the more than 19,000 Rohingya refugees already relocated to Bhashan Char, hundreds are being held in coastal towns after fleeing the island. At least 11 people have died in August after a fishing boat carrying refugees was wrecked.

The town of Bhashan Char, some 40 miles[60 km]from Bangladesh, is located in the heart of a hurricane that has claimed the lives of some 1 million people over the past 50 years.

The government earlier this year delayed the evacuation of many refugees to the island because it was completing a hurricane wall around 53sq km (20sq mile).

UN refugee agency, UNHCR, signed an agreement and Bangladeshi officials to provide assistance and protection to refugees on the island last month.

Bill Frelick, director of refugees and refugees at Human Rights Watch, said the agreement with UNHCR “does not provide a free ticket to relocate Rohingya refugees”.

Bangladesh says all migrations are voluntary but several refugees say they are being forced to relocate.

The Rohingya leader, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Bangladeshi officials had told him and his colleagues to each provide a list of at least five families to be relocated.

A Rohingya woman said her name had been added to the list without her permission and she did not want to move to the island.

On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said Rohingya leaders were forced to persuade camp residents to relocate to Bashan Char, including confiscating their documents.

Officials are urging Bangladesh to suspend further migration to ensure that refugees have the right to travel.

‘Great troubles’

Alexander Matheou, head of Asia-Pacific at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said governments were looking for ways to allow people to travel to the coast for a short period of time but “serious problems” remained.

Matheou, who visited the site on Tuesday, told Reuters by telephone that the island was “well-designed and well-maintained” and had clean water but that health care was “essential to the resilience of the population.” to send people to land.

The refugees they spoke to expressed their concern over not being able to move upstream to see their families.

“This is very frustrating for the people,” Matheou said, adding that the lack of freedom of movement would “interfere with the success of the project” unless it was addressed.