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HRW slams Bangladesh’s plan to relocate Rohingya refugees

Thursday, 09 February 2017 11:20 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 09 February 2017 11:20 AM ]

A Rohingya Muslim woman and her son cry after being caught by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) forces while crossing at a border checkpoint in Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh, November 21, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Bangladeshi government to drop a plan for the relocation of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to a remote island.

The leading human rights group made the plea on Wednesday, saying that the transfer of the refugees from the persecuted Muslim Rohingya community to a secluded and uninhabited coastal island in the Bay of Bengal would deprive them of their basic rights, including freedom of movement, livelihood, food, and education.

Bangladeshi officials have for some time been intending to relocate tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees to the Thengar Char island in the Bay of Bengal in eastern Bangladesh.

“The Bangladeshi government is making the ridiculous claim that relocating Rohingya refugees to an island with absolutely no facilities that is deluged at high tide and submerged during the monsoon season will improve their living conditions,” said Brad Adams, the Asia director at the New York-based rights body.

“This proposal is both cruel and unworkable and should be abandoned,” he said.

The relocation program was first introduced in 2015 but was shelved after fierce criticisms. The government revived the plan early this month following the new influx of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh.

The Rohingya Muslims are already being cracked down on in neighboring Myanmar.

Two UN agencies recently reported that the Myanmarese army likely killed over 1,000 members of the ethnic community over the past months. The officials said the death toll had been far greater than previously reported.

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, who tried to cross the Naf River into Bangladesh to escape persecution, are kept under watch by Bangladeshi security officials in Teknaf, December 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Myanmar denies citizenship to more than 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims living in the country, with Buddhist officials still insisting that members of the community all illegally crossed the border from Bangladesh over the past decades.

Rights groups and governments have repeatedly challenged the claim as historic documents show that Muslims have had historic roots in Myanmar.

Officials in Myanmar’s government also claim that fewer than 100 of the Muslims have been killed since the army began an operation against the residents of Rakhine in October last year. The operation was launched after the military claimed that Rohingya militants had attacked police border posts and killed several officers.

The UN says about 69,000 people have escaped from Rakhine into Bangladesh since the violence began last year.

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