Bangladesh Navy personnel help a disabled Rohingya refugee child to get off from a navy vessel as they arrive at the Bhasan Char island in Noakhali district, Bangladesh, December 29, 2020. REUTERS
As
many as 2,010 more Rohingyas have arrived at Bhashan Char in Noakhali from the
camps in Cox's Bazar in the fourth phase of the relocation process.
The persecuted Myanmar citizens reached the island in the Bay of Bengal on Monday afternoon, Additional Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) Mohammad Shamsud Douza said. Earlier, ships of the Bangladesh Navy carrying the Rohingyas left the Chittagong Boat Club jetty in the port city's Patenga area around 10am, said National Security Intelligence (NSI) officials.
The
Rohingyas, who have volunteered to be relocated to Bhashan Char developed by
the Bangladesh Navy at a cost of Tk3,100 crore, were brought to Chattgram from
Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar on Sunday.
At night, they stayed at a transit camp set up on the premises of BAF Shaheen College in Patenga. On Monday morning, some 13 buses carried them to the Chittagong Boat Club. NSI officials said 1,700 more Rohingyas are likely to sail for the island on Tuesday.
In the third phase, more than 3,200 Rohingyas were relocated to Bhashan Char in two days - January 29 and 30. In the first two phases – December 4 and 29 – some 3,446 Rohingyas were relocated to the Noakhali island.
Buoyed by the success of the first, second, and third relocation, the government is continuing its effort to relocate some 100,000 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char in phases to provide them with a better living place. Located 34km from the mainland, the island under Hatiya upazila of Noakhali surfaced 20 years ago and was never inhabited.
Contractors say its infrastructure is like a modern township, with multi-family concrete homes, schools, playgrounds, and roads. It also has solar power facilities, a water supply system, and cyclone shelters. Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar district.
Most
of them entered Bangladesh since August 25, 2017, amid a military crackdown on
Rohingyas in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, which the UN called a "textbook
example of ethnic cleansing" and other rights groups dubbed as
"genocide."
Bangladesh
has been urging the global community to mount pressure on Myanmar for effective
repatriation of the Rohingyas.
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