Bangladesh: Regularly submerging Island to house 100,000 Rohingya refugees

The Bangladesh Government has planned to accommodate 100,000 Rohingya refugees in its Bhasan Char Island.

Highlights

The island, Bhasan Char that is regularly submerged in water during monsoon has been fortified with embankments and flood protection to relocate Rohingyas here. However, the date of relocation has not been announced. Hospitals, mosques and houses have been built. There are more than 700,000 Rohingyas that fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar as the latter began ethnic cleansing of Rohingyas in their country.

Bhasan Char

The Island is also known as Hatiya Upazila. It is located at 37 miles from the coast. The Island has been fortified with Himalayan silt in 2006. It is under water between June and September due to monsoon rains. This is because Bangladesh is a low-lying Delta country formed by the two unification of two mighty Himalayan rivers Ganges and Brahmaputra.

Criticizations

The United Nations Refugee Agency termed the move of the Bangladeshi government as logistically challenging. Several other organizations like the Human Rights Watch criticized the move as humanitarian disaster.

India

India has been deporting Rohingyas to Myanmar. In 2017, the Union Ministry announced that there are around 40,000 Rohingyas living in India. Around 16,000 of them have been registered under United Nations as Refugees. They are spread across Delhi, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Tamil Nadu.

Month: Current Affairs - January, 2020