UN expert urges caution on Bangladesh’s Rohingya island ‘relocation’ plan
- Proposed location is considered vulnerable to monsoons and other natural disasters
- The island is one hour by boat from the nearest land
Bangladesh must not “rush to relocate refugees” from the Rohingya Muslim minority, a top UN rights official said on Friday, amid plans to move the community to an island vulnerable to extreme monsoon weather.
Some 750,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar escaped a bloody military crackdown in northern Rakhine state since August 2017 and joined some 300,000 refugees living in the already overcrowded Bangladesh camps.
Dhaka has spent some US$280 million transforming Bhashan Char, a muddy silt islet that only emerged from the Bay of Bengal nearly two decades ago, into a camp for some of the refugees.
But the island, in a coastal region where extreme weather has killed hundreds of thousands of people in recent decades, is one hour by boat from the nearest land and over a stretch of sea prone to violent storms.
Yanghee Lee, a UN Special Rapporteur of human rights, visited the island on Thursday and urged Bangladesh to observe “caution and patience” before proceeding with any relocation plan.
