DHAKA: The UN has followed up a review of a remote island facility set up by Bangladesh for Rohingya refugees by calling on Dhaka to carry out the relocation process in a “phased manner.”
The recommendation comes despite warnings by rights groups that the site is vulnerable to severe weather and flooding.
A UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesperson in Dhaka, Charlie Goodlake, told Arab News on Saturday that the UN team is recommending that any future relocations “are undertaken in a gradual and phased manner.”
The UN planned to hold “further discussions” with Dhaka on the initiative, he said.
“It would help to ensure that the governance structure, facilities and services on the island meet the needs of Rohingya refugees living there,” Goodlake added.
The UN report released to the media late on Friday comes a month after 18 UN experts conducted their first visit to Bhasan Char island on March 17.
Soon after the UN’s visit, a 10-member team of diplomats — comprising heads of missions of embassies and delegations from Turkey, the EU, US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands — also visited the island on April 3 to review the facilities.
Bangladesh has moved 18,500 Rohingya refugees from crammed camps in its Cox’s Bazar district to Bhasan Char, dubbed Rohingya island, since December last year.
It wants to eventually relocate 100,000 of the more than a million refugees from the overcrowded camps to the remote island, located in the Bay of Bengal and 60 km from the mainland.
Bhasan Char was built by Dhaka in 2006 using Himalayan silt and sediment to ease the overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar district. The project cost more than $360 million.
Each Bhasan Char house has five-square-meter concrete rooms with small windows, and a toilet for 11 people.
However, the UNHCR said it was concerned about the island’s vulnerability to severe weather and flooding, leading to a UN proposal in December 2019 for a “technical assessment” of the site.
The three-day visit in March marked a breakthrough in the proposal and follows attempts by the UN refugee agency to visit the island amid concerns about whether the relocation of the Rohingya refugees to the island was safe.
Similar concerns were raised by several international rights organizations, which urged Bangladesh not to relocate the Rohingya to Bhasan Char, warning that the island was located in an area prone to cyclones and could be submerged during a high tide.
Dhaka said that it had set up 120 cyclone shelters — built more than a meter above ground — which could be used as hospitals, schools and community centers throughout the year.
However, in its latest report, the UN said it “recognizes the prevailing humanitarian and protection needs of the Rohingya refugees already relocated to Bhasan Char” and proposed holding more talks on the process with Dhaka soon.
“We hope the discussions will take place as early as possible. The discussions would be on the UN’s future operational engagement on Bhasan Char, including on the policies that govern the life and wellbeing of Rohingya refugees on the island,” Goodlake told Arab News.
He said the UN team recognizes the extensive investments made by the Bangladesh government in Bhasan Char, “including the facilities and infrastructure and other offshore coastal protection measures.”
However, he said that to further mitigate risks, the UN is calling for an “emergency management plan in the case of severe weather events, including the pre-positioning of essential supplies and goods on the island.”
The UN report also recommended that Bhasan Char be managed by “civilian authorities in an inclusive and consultative manner.”
On Friday, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. A. K. Abdul Momen said that the UN had made “very good and positive observations” in its latest report.
In previous comments to Arab News, Momen also urged the UN to start its operations on Bhasan Char as it would be a “huge task to manage 100,000 refugees on the island.”
Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.1 million Rohingya at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, believed to be the world’s largest refugee settlement.
The Rohingya are members of an ethnic and religious minority group, many of whom fled persecution in Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.
Buddhist-majority Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh, even though their families have lived in the country for generations.
Almost all have been denied citizenship for decades, and are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.
UN urges Dhaka to relocate Rohingya to island in ‘phased manner’
https://arab.news/ws422
UN urges Dhaka to relocate Rohingya to island in ‘phased manner’
- Report follows a three-day study of remote Bhasan Char by UN experts
‘I admire Vision 2030’: Bangladesh’s new PM aims for stronger Saudi, GCC ties
- Saudi Arabia congratulates Tarique Rahman on assuming Bangladesh’s top office
- Relations between Bangladesh and Kingdom were formalized during his father’s rule
DHAKA: After 17 years in exile, Tarique Rahman has taken office as prime minister of Bangladesh, inheriting his parents’ political legacy and facing immediate economic and political challenges.
Rahman led his Bangladesh Nationalist Party to a landslide victory in the Feb. 12 general election, winning an absolute majority with 209 of 300 parliamentary seats and marking the party’s return to power after two decades.
The BNP was founded by his father, former President Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero. After his assassination in 1981, Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, took over the party’s helm and served two full terms as prime minister — in 1991 and 2001.
Rahman and his cabinet, whose members were sworn in alongside him on Tuesday, take over from an interim administration which governed Bangladesh for 18 months after former premier Sheikh Hasina — the BNP’s archrival who ruled consecutively for 15 years — was toppled in the 2024 student-led uprising.
As he begins his term, the new prime minister’s first tasks will be to rebuild the economy — weakened by uncertainty during the interim administration — and to restore political stability. Relations with the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and other GCC states, are also high on his agenda.
“Saudi Arabia is one of our long-standing friends,” Rahman told Arab News at his office in Dhaka, two days before his historic election win.
“I admire the Saudi Vision 2030, and I am sincerely looking forward to working with the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. BNP always had a great relationship with the Muslim world, especially GCC nations — UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman — and I look forward to working closely with GCC countries and their leadership to build a long-term trusting partnership with mutual interest,” Rahman said.
The Saudi government congratulated him on assuming the top office on Tuesday, wishing prosperity to the Bangladeshi people.
Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia established formal diplomatic relations in August 1975, and the first Bangladeshi ambassador presented his credentials in late 1976, after Rahman’s father rose to power. That year, Bangladesh also started sending laborers, engineers, doctors, and teachers to work in the Kingdom.
Today, more than 3 million Bangladeshis live and work in Saudi Arabia — the largest expat group in the Kingdom and the biggest Bangladeshi community outside the country.
“I recall that when my father, President Ziaur Rahman, was in office, bilateral relations between our two nations were initiated,” Rahman said. “During the tenure of my mother, the late Begum Khaleda Zia, as prime minister, those relations became even stronger.”
Over the decades, Saudi Arabia has not only emerged as the main destination for Bangladesh’s migrant workers but also one of its largest development and emergency aid donors.
Weeks after Rahman’s mother began her first term as prime minister in 1991, Bangladesh was struck by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in its history. Riyadh was among the first who offered assistance, and Zia visited Saudi Arabia on her earliest foreign tour and performed Hajj in June 1991.
For Rahman, who had been living in London since 2008 and returned to Bangladesh in December — just days before his mother’s death — the Kingdom will also be one of the first countries he plans to visit.
“I would definitely like to visit Saudi Arabia early in my term,” he said. “Personally, I also wish to visit the holy mosque, Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah, to perform Umrah.”
