The Bangladeshi navy transports 1,804 Rohingya Muslim refugees to the isolated Bhashan Char island from overcrowded makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Rohingya Muslim refugees are members of an ethnic and religious minority group who have fled violence and persecution in Myanmar.
This would be the second group of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who were taken to an island in the Bay of Bengal to start new lives, despite UN concerns for their welfare. The first group of 1,642 refugees was relocated in early December, to the island, 30 km from the mainland.
Under the $370 million relocation project, the Bangladeshi government has built housing units and infrastructure on Bhashan Char for 100,000 Rohingya refugees to take the pressure off the main refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar that already hosts more than 1.1 million people. However, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it had not been involved in the relocation operation and expressed concerns over the vulnerability of the island to severe weather and flooding, as the island only emerged from the sea 20 years ago.
In 1991, nearly 143,000 people in coastal areas of Bangladesh were killed by a cyclone that produced a tidal wave more than four meters high. The government, however, claims the island is safe as it had built a two-meter-high embankment to protect the housing area.
Rohingya Muslim refugees are members of an ethnic and religious minority group who have fled violence and persecution in Myanmar.
This would be the second group of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who were taken to an island in the Bay of Bengal to start new lives, despite UN concerns for their welfare. The first group of 1,642 refugees was relocated in early December, to the island, 30 km from the mainland.
Under the $370 million relocation project, the Bangladeshi government has built housing units and infrastructure on Bhashan Char for 100,000 Rohingya refugees to take the pressure off the main refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar that already hosts more than 1.1 million people. However, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it had not been involved in the relocation operation and expressed concerns over the vulnerability of the island to severe weather and flooding, as the island only emerged from the sea 20 years ago.
In 1991, nearly 143,000 people in coastal areas of Bangladesh were killed by a cyclone that produced a tidal wave more than four meters high. The government, however, claims the island is safe as it had built a two-meter-high embankment to protect the housing area.
