• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Sunday, July 13, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home World

Bangladesh Begins Controversial Transfer of Rohingya to Island

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
12/03/20
in World
Rohingya Muslim refugee children at Jalpatoli refugee camp. Photo: AFP

Rohingya Muslim refugee children at Jalpatoli refugee camp. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Bangladesh began transferring hundreds of Rohingya refugees on Thursday to a low-lying island in an area prone to cyclones and floods, with rights groups alleging people were being coerced into leaving.

Almost a million Rohingya — most of whom fled a military offensive in neighboring Myanmar in 2017 — live in a vast network of squalid camps in south-eastern Bangladesh.

With many refusing to return, and with violent drug gangs and extremists active on the sites, the Bangladeshi government has grown increasingly impatient to clear out the camps.

On Thursday more than 20 buses carrying almost a thousand people left the camps in the Cox’s Bazar region, headed for the port city of Chittagong, said Anwar Hossain, regional police chief.

“Twenty buses left in two shifts. There were 423 people in the first 10 buses and 499 in the second 10 buses,” he told AFP.

From Chittagong the refugees were due to be taken by boat to the island of Bhashan Char on Friday, a senior navy officer and a police officer told AFP.

The island, measuring 13,000 acres (52 square kilometers), is one of several silty strips to have surfaced in the Bay of Bengal in recent decades.

The Bangladesh Navy has built shelters there for at least 100,000 Rohingya refugees as well as a nine-foot (three-meter) flood embankment.

But locals say high tides flooded the island a few years ago and that cyclones, a regular occurrence in the region, can cause storm surges of four or five meters.

‘Smashed teeth’

Police said more buses would leave later on Thursday, with officials saying earlier they planned to transfer a total of 2,500 people in a first phase.

But rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International alleged that some of the refugees had been coerced into going.

This was borne out by some family members that AFP spoke to on Thursday.

“They beat my son mercilessly and even smashed his teeth so that he agreed to go to the island,” said Sufia Khatun, 60, who came to see off her son and five other relatives.

“I have come here to see him and his family probably for the last time,” she told AFP in tears.

Hafez Ahmed, 17, came to say goodbye to his brother and his family. 

“My brother has been missing for the last two days. We later learnt that he is now here (in the transit camp), from where he will be taken to the island. He is not going willingly,” Ahmed told AFP.

The United Nations office in Bangladesh issued a terse statement on Thursday saying it was “not involved” and had “limited information”.

It said the UN had not been allowed to independently assess the “safety, feasibility and sustainability” of the island as a place to live.

It said the refugees “must be able to make a free and informed decision about relocating” and that, once there, they should have access to education and health care — and be able to leave if they wish.

‘Better facilities’

But Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen called the rights groups’ claims “a damn lie”, and said the facilities on the island were “much better” than in the camps.

“Bangladesh government has decided to take around 23,000 families to Bhashan Char voluntarily,” he told AFP. “The current camps are very congested… They are going voluntarily.”

Several local rights activists said some families had agreed to move to the island because of the prevailing law-and-order situation in the camps.

At least seven Rohingya were killed and many houses were torched in recent months in attacks by suspected Rohingya extremist groups.

Since May the island has been home to 306 Rohingya refugees who were intercepted from boats on treacherous sea routes to Malaysia and Indonesia.

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Many Rohingya refugees in Indonesia enlist the help of traffickers to cross the sea to neighboring Malaysia.
World

More Than 150 Rohingya Refugees Rescued off Indonesia: UN

by Staff Writer with AFP
October 24, 2024
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016
World

Some 45,000 Rohingya Have Fled Fighting in Myanmar: UN

by Staff Writer with AFP
May 24, 2024
A bamboo-based design raises family homes safely above water levels to cope with raising water levels in Bangladesh.
Opinion

The West Owes Climate Refugees Reparations Now

by Cresa Pugh
August 14, 2023
Myanmar Rohingya refugees look on in a refugee camp in Teknaf, in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, on November 26, 2016
Refugees

US Announces $26M in New Aid for Rohingya

by Staff Writer
March 8, 2023
Rohingya Muslims
National

US Says Myanmar Committed Genocide Against Rohingya

by Staff Writer
March 21, 2022
A health official registers the details of sex workers in Daulatdia, Bangladesh
World

Bangladesh Vaccinates Hundreds of Sex Workers at Largest Brothel

by Staff Writer
August 19, 2021
Next Post
Protests in Belarus

UN Says Rights Situation in Belarus Deteriorating

A ring of people mourn around an open casket

Risking Death to Defend Life in Colombia

Recommended

UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese

UN Says US Sanctions on Expert Sets ‘Dangerous Precedent,’ Must Be Reversed

July 11, 2025
Women in Afghanistan wearing a blue burqa

ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders Over Persecution of Women

July 9, 2025
Kenya, Nairobi, 2024-07-16. Protesters in the streets

Nairobi Tense as Kenya Marks Democracy Uprising

July 7, 2025
President Donald Trump

Trump Wins ‘Phenomenal’ Victory as Congress Passes Flagship Bill

July 4, 2025
University students march in protest towards the Istanbul Municipality in Sarachane as they demonstrate against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 21, 2025.

‘Remember Charlie Hebdo!’ Protesters Seethe at Istanbul Magazine

July 2, 2025
US President Donald Trump

US Senate Edges Towards Vote on Trump’s Divisive Spending Bill

June 30, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post