Authorities in Bangladesh yeterday started sending a first group of more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees to an isolated island, despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process.
The 1,642 refugees were boarding seven Bangladeshi naval vessels in the port of Chittagong for the trip to Bhashan Char, according to an official, who could not be named in accordance with local practice.
The island was once regularly submerged by monsoon rains, but now has flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals and mosques built at a cost of more than US$112 million by the Bangladesh navy.
Photo: AP
The island, which is 34km from the mainland, surfaced only 20 years ago and was never inhabited.
The UN has also voiced concern that refugees be allowed to make a “free and informed decision” about whether to relocate to the island in the Bay of Bengal.
The island’s facilities are built to accommodate 100,000 people, just a fraction of the 1 million Rohingya Muslims who have fled waves of violent persecution in their native Myanmar and are living in crowded, squalid refugee camps.
On Thursday, 11 passenger buses carrying refugees left Cox’s Bazar district on the way to the island, where they were expected to arrive after an overnight stopover, a government official involved with the process said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
He said that “a few thousand” refugees were in the first batch.
Authorities in Cox’s Bazar did not say how the refugees were selected for relocation.
About 700,000 Rohingya fled to the camps in Cox’s Bazar after August 2017, when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began a crackdown on the Muslim group following an attack by insurgents.
The crackdown included rapes, killings and the torching of thousands of homes, and was termed ethnic cleansing by global rights groups and the UN.
Foreign media have not been permitted to visit the island.
Contractors say that its infrastructure is like a modern township, with multifamily concrete homes, schools, playgrounds and roads. It also has solar-power facilities, a water supply system and cyclone shelters.
International aid agencies and the UN have opposed the relocation since it was first proposed in 2015, expressing fear that a big storm could overwhelm the island and endanger thousands of lives.
The UN said in a statement on Wednesday that it has not been involved in preparations for the relocation or the selection of refugees and has limited information about the overall plan.
“The United Nations takes this opportunity to highlight its longstanding position that Rohingya refugees must be able to make a free and informed decision about relocating to Bhasan Char based upon relevant, accurate and updated information,” it said.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged the Bangladeshi government to cancel the relocation plan.
The refugee camps near the town of Cox’s Bazar are overcrowded and unhygienic. Disease and organized crime are rampant. Education is limited and refugees are not allowed to work.
Most Rohingya are unwilling to return to Myanmar due to safety concerns.
Government officials did not have an estimate of how many refugees would be willing to be relocated to the island.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly told the UN and other international partners that her administration would consult them before making a final decision on the relocation, and that no refugees would be forced to move.
Bangladesh attempted to start sending refugees back to Myanmar under a bilateral framework in November last year, but no one was willing to go.
The Rohingya are not recognized as citizens in Myanmar, rendering them stateless, and face other forms of state-sanctioned discrimination.
A UN-sponsored investigation in 2018 recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the violence against the Rohingya.
Myanmar is defending itself in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, after the west African nation of Gambia brought a case backed by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, Canada and the Netherlands over the crackdown.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of