1,778 More Rohingyas Reach Bhasan Char

As part of the government’s initiative to relocate Rohingyas to Bhasan Char, 1,778 more forcibly displaced Myanmar Nationals reached the island in Noakhali in the third batch on Friday.

Four Rohingya-carrying Bangladesh Navy vessels left the Patenga Naval jetty at around 9:40 a.m. and reached Bhasan Char at around 1:00 p.m., said Mohammad Shamsu Douza, Additional Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation.

Another 1,300 Rohingyas will leave for Bhasan Char on Saturday, he said.

On Thursday, the second Rohingya party was taken to the temporary transit camp at Ukhiya Degree College ground at Cox's Bazar and later transferred to Chattogram City's BAF Shaheen College ground after registration.

Over 3,000 Rohingyas are scheduled to be brought to the island in the third batch over the next two days. 3,446 Rohingyas were moved there in the first two stages, reports UNB.

Bangladesh, one of the world's most heavily populated countries, currently hosts over 1.1 million Rohingya people. After August 2017, the bulk of them have come here to escape persecution in their homeland of Rakhine, Myanmar.

Bangladesh has urged the global community to take concrete measures to persuade Myanmar to create a peaceful environment for the repatriation of Rohingya, but little progress has been made to date.

They have been put on a collision course with the locals by the presence of the large number of Rohingyas in the coastal district. Several Rohingyas have engaged in various illegal activities.

The Rohingya population would pose a significant security threat to the entire region if they are not sent back to their homeland as soon as possible, Foreign Minister AK Momen has said.

Currently, in Cox's Bazar, the Rohingyas live in temporary, crowded camps exposed to various natural calamities.

The government spent millions of dollars to develop Bhasan Char and plans to relocate 100,000 Rohingyas there in phases in the face of growing concerns over the extreme congestion in Cox’s Bazar camps and to avert any risk of death due to landslides and other unwarranted incidents.