Criticism of planned relocation of Rohingya to Prison Island

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has sharply criticized Bangladesh’s plans to forcibly relocate 100,000 Rohingya refugees to an uninhabited island. “The planned forced relocation is cynical and inhumane – and it will only increase the suffering of the traumatized women and children,” explained Ulrich Delius, the STP’s director. The refugees must not just be loaded off on an island to put them “out of sight, out of mind”. “If they are forced to live on the cordoned-off island, it will be even harder to mobilize international humanitarian aid and to bring about a political solution to the Rohingya crisis,” Delius emphasized. Even today, only 39 percent of the funds to ensure humanitarian aid for the Rohingya are covered by donor countries all over the world.

Bangladesh’s government is planning to relocate the first 25,000 refugees to the island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal in November 2018. Originally, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wanted to open the huge refugee camp on October 4, 2018. Officially, the postponement was justified by alleged time constraints. Behind the scenes, however, there are ongoing arguments over the controversial project, which human rights and aid organizations have been criticizing for years.

The island, which covers only 7.7 square kilometers, is located about 30 kilometers off the mainland. The Bangladesh Navy invested $ 278 million to prepare the island and to build mass accommodations for the refugees, as foreign donors were unwilling to provide financial support for the controversial project. The large accommodation buildings were set up on an area of about 1.5 square kilometers. “The project is absurd and inhumane. In New York, there are 11,000 people per square kilometer – but Bhasan Char is supposed to accommodate around 67,000 refugees per square kilometer. Conflicts are inevitable,” Delius warned.

As the island is regularly flooded due to cyclones, the Navy built a three-meter high barrier around the island. According to a report by the nature conservation authority, the island – which was declared a nature reserve in 2013 – is not suitable for settlement. Around 52 percent of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are children and adolescents. “This insane project will fuel hopelessness and radicalization among young refugees,” Delius emphasized.

Header picture: Mohammad Tauheed via Flickr