Some 3,000 Rohingya people are scheduled to be moved from the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, to an uninhabitable tiny island in the Bay of Bengal called Bhasan Car, as early as Monday, November 4.
The Bangladeshi government plans eventually to relocate as many as 100,000 Rohingya to Bhasan Char in phases. Despite promises from the Government of Bangladesh that all of these people have “volunteered” to go, we have been told that’s not true. And what kinds of living conditions they will encounter at Bhasan Char remains uncertain and deeply concerning, as United Nations agencies have not been allowed to enter the island since September 2018. Their visit last year was quite brief, and a safety and security assessment of the island, including the sea wall constructed in anticipation of severe weather events, has not been completed.
“Part of the island is eroded by the monsoon every year,” one man told Human Rights Watch. “In that time, we never dare go to that island, so how will thousands of Rohingya live there?”
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NGOs providing vital services in the Cox’s Bazar camps have not been granted permission to work on the island, and a number have said that they will not operate there, given the appalling conditions. This would likely mean that there would be a gross inadequacy of basic and lifesaving services. Even if aid agencies do work on Bhasan Char, the safety of its inhabitants, who we expect to have been forcibly relocated there, will be gravely jeopardized.
We are asking you to ask your representatives in Congress to put out a public statement or tweet calling on the Bangladeshi government to stop this move immediately, before it is too late.
Jewish World Watch is partnering today with the Jewish Rohingya Justice Network to get the word out! Please contact your representative today and raise the alarms that the Rohingya, who have already suffered genocide and are living in barely subsistence-level conditions in Cox’s Bazar, must not be sent to an island where their very existence will once again be put in jeopardy.
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