A total of ten buses carrying Rohingyas from Ukhia and Teknaf camps of Cox’s Bazar have started journey for Bhasan Char of Noakhali’s Hatiya as a part of relocation amid the outcry from different human rights organizations.
RAB-7 and RAB-15 are providing security to the fleet carrying the Rohingyas, who started their journey on Thursday morning.
RAB-15 Commander Azim Ahmed confirmed the news.
They are being relocated to the island following a recent decision, taken in an internal meeting at the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner’s (RRRC) Office.
Bangladesh is hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar camps in a very congested way. Some 100,000 Rohingyas will be shifted to Bhasan Char gradually.
Bhasan Char is well-equipped with modern facilities including- schools, mosques, community clinics, mobile networks, and internet – to provide shelter for one lakh Rohingya people.
Four layers of a protection system have been set up to save the young island, which emerged in the Bay of Bengal, around 39 kilometres from Noakhali, in an estuary of the River Meghna in 2006 from natural disasters, including cyclones.
The Tk 3,100-crore housing project, funded with public money, was taken after some 750,000 Rohingyas fled a brutal military campaign in Myanmar’s Rakhine and took shelter in Cox’s Bazar since August 2017. They joined some 300,000 other Rohingyas, who had fled previous waves of violence in Rakhine.