Arakan News Agency
The Bangladesh government should immediately scrap its plan to transfer Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited, undeveloped coastal island, said Human Rights Watch .
“Relocating the refugees from the Cox’s Bazar area to Thengar Char island would deprive them of their rights to freedom of movement, livelihood, food and education, in violation of Bangladesh’s obligations under international human rights law,” said the HRW in a press release.
Between 300,000 and 500,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, most of them unregistered, are staying in Bangladesh after fleeing persecution in Myanmar dating back to the 1990s.
Since October 2016, nearly 69,000 Rohingya from Arakan State in Myanmar have entered Bangladesh to escape attacks by the country’s security forces, including unlawful killings, sexual violence and wholesale destruction of villages.
“The Bangladesh government is making the ridiculous claim that relocating Rohingya refugees to an island with absolutely no facilities that is deluged at high tide and submerged during the monsoon season will improve their living conditions,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of HRW.
“This proposal is both cruel and unworkable and should be abandoned,” he said.
The plan to move long-term refugees to Thengar Char was first suggested in 2015, but was shelved after widespread condemnation, HRW said.
Thengar Chor was apparently chosen because of its distance from inhabited areas – it is 30 kilometers from the populated Hatiya island and a long journey from existing Rohingya camps, the press release read.
The government revived the plan in early February 2017 following the new influx of Rohingya refugees.
Officials contended that the new arrivals pose a law and order and a public health problem, but have produced no evidence to support this claim.
In addition, the government has issued warnings against new arrivals mixing with the general population and established committees to increase security around the camps to prevent refugees from exiting the camps or “intermingling” with Bangladeshi citizens.
According to the release, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Mohammed Shahriar Alam said, “The Rohingya will live [in Thengar Char] temporarily and our desire is that the Myanmar [Burma] government will take them back as soon as possible.”
The government announced that it will build embankments around the island to stave off the constant flooding, but similar islands along the coast have long faced flooding and frequent evacuations despite government interventions.
Aid agencies, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which administers the refugee camps, expressed alarm over the revival of this plan, and said that any relocation of the refugees to Thengar Char must be voluntary, and be done through a consultative process after a feasibility study has been completed, said the press release.
Source : Daily Star
