Arakan News Agency
The voluntary relocation of 100,000 Rohingya refugees from crowded camps in southeastern Bangladesh to a newly formed sedimentary island at the mouth of the Meghna River could begin by June, government officials said.
Habib al-Kabir Chaudhry, head of the disaster management unit of the Bangladeshi Ministry of Health, which deals with Rohingya issues, told Media : “Construction and development has started on Bhashan-char. We hope that we can start moving the Rohingya by June. “
“Homes under construction on the island will be much better than those in the Teknaf camps,” Chaudhry said, referring to the two sub-districts of Cox’s Bazaar, which bore the brunt of the influx of Rohingya refugees from Arakan.
Mohammed Abul Kalam, the government commissioner for refugee and relief, said they would not send any refugees to the island against their will.
The authorities hope that construction of the necessary buildings and infrastructure will be completed in the first phase of the project by the end of May. ”
He said up to 12,000 people were working on the construction of 440 buildings on the island. “We have built structures to protect the entire island from the risks of flooding and rising tides. We also built shelters to save them from hurricanes. ”
According to the newspaper, construction work on the island is part of the plan to rehabilitate the island, which costs 23.12 billion taka (280 million US dollars), announced by the government in November for the transfer of refugees from the camps in the area of Cox Bazar, which lies on the borders of Arakan.
