Bangladesh sends third group of Rohingya refugees to remote island

Bangladeshi authorities announced on Wednesday, February 28, that they will relocate between two and three thousand Rohingya refugees to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal in the coming days.

This comes at a time when human rights groups have repeatedly expressed concern about the vulnerability of this region to storms and flooding.

The Bangladeshi government has transferred about 3,500 Rohingya refugees, a Muslim minority expelled from Myanmar, to the island of Bhasan Char in the past two months.

"Bahasan Char" Island, which rose from the sea 20 years ago, has a very low elevation above sea level and is a flood-prone island.

Bangladeshi authorities have deemed the transfer of these refugees to "Bhasan Char" necessary to reduce the constant overcrowding in the camps, which now house more than a million Rohingya.

"Last time we were ready to transfer 700 to 1,000 refugees, but in the end more than 1,800 Rohingya were transferred there," Bangladesh Navy official Abdullah Al-Mamun told Reuters.

"People who have already been transferred there want their friends and relatives to join them," he claimed, referring to the transfer of thousands of new asylum seekers to the remote island.

Human rights organizations and refugees have called the implementation of such a plan "short-sighted and inhumane" and have called for an immediate end to this "forced and involuntary" method of displacement.

Bangladeshi authorities say that these transfers were "voluntary" and "optional," but reports of the conditions of the relocated refugees contradict these claims.

Source: Radio Farda