Rohingya leaders on a remote Bangladesh island say they expect greater freedom of movement for its exclusive refugee population when a United Nations agency takes over humanitarian activities there, while the prospect has already reduced “the trend of fleeing” that led to drownings.
Under a memorandum of understanding signed between Bangladesh and the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR earlier this month, the Rohingya residents of Bhashan Char will be able to move around the island freely, and the two sides will agree on refugee movements off the island as needed. BenarNews obtained a copy of the MoU, which the government and the U.N. agency have declined to make public.
The announcement of the U.N.’s “engagement on Bhashan Char has made our community people happy,” Rohingya leader Md Yeasin told BenarNews on Monday.
“The trend of fleeing is already being reduced, and it will hopefully be stopped when the people will be allowed free movement in the island area.”
After months of negotiation, Dhaka and UNHCR on Oct. 9 signed the memorandum that clears the way for the U.N. agency to begin humanitarian operations on Bhashan Char, a tiny low-lying Bay of Bengal island where the government has built a housing complex and infrastructure to accommodate Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
Since December 2020, Bangladesh has moved as many as 19,000 refugees there from sprawling and densely crowded Rohingya camps on the mainland, saying that Rohingya have been going to the island on a voluntary basis. Dhaka plans to relocate more than 80,000 others from those camps in Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern district near the Myanmar border.
“Our movement is very restricted here. We are always kept under tight surveillance,” Muhammad Sohel, another Rohingya leader, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
“After the MoU was signed, UNHCR representatives already visited us, and they informed us about various facilities including free movement on the island.”
Until now, Bangladesh’s navy has been in charge of managing the red-roofed dormitory-type housing structures on Bhashan Char, which Human Rights Watch has likened to “an island jail in the middle of the sea.” Under the MoU, the navy will transfer those duties to civilian administrators.
A Dhaka University professor said the deal was “long overdue.”
“Although it is late, it has made the island refugees hopeful about their future. And it is also encouraging refugees in Cox’s Bazar to go to the Bhashan Char,” Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed said.
“In the agreement, the word ‘protection’ is used in different provisions, which means the agreement truly and effectively will help the people who are now staying in Bhashan Char,” he told BenarNews.
Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.