Fears rise for Rohingyas on ‘floating prison’
The days on the barren silt island of Bhasan Char, in the Bay of Bengal, have a mundane rhythm for Fatima, a single mother with a teenage daughter, who was transferred there in December along with hundreds of Rohingya from the overcrowded refugee camps on the Bangladeshi coastline.
She spends her time going to the market, cooking and sitting around. The island’s breeze-block barracks lack character or home comforts, but they are, she says, an improvement on the flimsy tarpaulin and bamboo huts in the sprawling camps that house more than a million people.
Despite concerns from human rights groups that the isolated island, 30km from shore, will become akin to a ‘‘floating prison’’, Fatima said she relocated voluntarily after her brother said those who moved there would be given priority for repatriation to Myanmar or relocation to a third country.
Senior Bangladeshi officials will meet their Myanmar counterparts in the capital, Dhaka, for the first time in a year today to attempt to thrash out the details of sending hundreds of thousands of Rohingya home to Rakhine state, where they fled a murderous military campaign in 2017.
A K Abdul Momen, the Bangladeshi foreign affairs minister, said he hoped the meeting, mediated by China, would be ‘‘fruitful’’. But prospects of a speedy resolution have so far been hampered by foot-dragging by Myanmar and refugees’ fears of returning to a hostile environment.
Humanitarian groups, who are vehemently against the plan to relocate some 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char, have raised concerns that the consent of Rohingyas to move there may have been manufactured either through deprivations or false promises, both forms of coercion.
They have urged Dhaka to halt the ‘‘rushed’’ relocation process to allow an independent safety assessment and more consultation with refugees. Aid agencies also fear a big storm could overwhelm the island, which only emerged from the sea 20 years ago.
‘‘We know some Rohingya were promised third-country resettlement if they agreed to go to Bhasan Char.
‘‘They were lied to,’’ said Matthew
Smith, chief executive of Fortify Rights.
‘‘Dhaka is failing to authorise United Nations assessments of the island and ignored our request to access it. This makes the island seem less like a genuine response to the needs of refugees and more like a perverse attempt to maroon genocide survivors.’’
The accusations have been strongly denied by Momen, who described Bhasan Char as a temporary shelter to prevent loss of life from landslides in the overflowing onshore camps, which are located on unstable sandy ground.
‘‘Bangladesh should be applauded for arranging such decent living for persecuted people,’’ the minister said.