Rohingya relocation at Bhasan Char

At long last the first batch of 1,642 Rohingya refugees could be relocated to Bhasan Char from their crammed shanties in camps of Cox's Bazar. Not many including the UN agencies and other international rights and donor groups welcomed this move. In fact, many of them have been expressing their resentment to the government move right from the time the government made the plan known to them. But why?

Bangladesh has so far done for the persecuted Rohingy people evicted from their home and hearth what not even the richer nations in the West could do. Refugees fleeing war-ravaged Syria, Libya, Yemen and other Arab and African countries have not only been maltreated on arrival on their coasts but many were driven out to perish in the Mediterranean sea. A devastating fire in a refugee camp in Greece months back only brings to the fore the sad tale of refugees seeking shelter in Europe.

It was no different under US President Donald Trump who was in favour of building a wall on America-Mexico border to seal entry of refugees from Latin American countries. Two pictures of two dead children Aylan Kurdi, a three-year Syrian boy, lying head down on Turkish coast and a 2-year-old girl Valeria tied on the back of her dead father on the shore of Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico will continue to haunt human civilisation as long as human migration will remain a thorny issue.

True, some may have genuine concern for the humanitarian need of the Rohingya but others shed crocodile tears without going deep into the matter. Bangladesh has been immensely generous to the 1.1 million Rohingya refugees but at a huge cost. It has to spend $300 million on them every month, which comes to a staggering $3.6 billion a year.

What is even more worrying is the fact that the refugees have wreaked havoc with the environment all around and even pose a threat to the demographic make-up of Cox's Bazar district. Myanmar is the primary source of yaba and some refugees are involved in smuggling of these deadly pills. Illegal money earned from smuggling allows them to seek Bangladesh nationality and this and many such criminal activities resorted to by them and their local underworld patrons have a devastatingly baneful influence not only on the local people but on others all across the country. Cox's Bazar is a tourist site and wide infiltration of drug there can spread the crime to the interior.

That elephants are getting killed in the hilly forests has its origin in the destruction of their herds' migration routes on account of the Rohingya. Forest trees have been felled indiscriminately by refugees. 

Besides, Rohingya groups also clashed in the Kutupalang and other camps with fatal consequences. Miserable living condition in such camps provides an ideal breeding ground for vices. Compared to this subhuman condition, the shelters built on 13,000 acres of land in Bhasan Char is heavenly.  Well planned with education, health and hygienic facilities such as hospitals, clinics, overhead water tanks and even mosques, the living quarters give the impression of a nice township. Besides, there are cyclone shelters as well. For continuous electricity supply, extensive arrangement has been made for solar power.

Disinformation and misinformation about the island have been spread with an exaggerated concern for safety. Who says there are no human habitations? How could then there be more than 12,000 buffaloes, the largest stock in the country, on the island? Then there are cattle and sheep in their thousands. Dairy products and meat from the livestock there serve the country quite well.

Last but not least, the island's capability to withstand cyclone, tidal waves and similar other natural hazards has already been put to the test. In the test it has come out with flying colours. According to reports, the cyclone Amphan did not cause any harm to a single unit of the 1,440 houses and 120 shelter stations built there.

When there was an overriding need for putting extra pressure on Myanmar for early Rohingya repatriation, the international community has failed to play its role accordingly. Now they would not appreciate the Bangladesh government's laudatory move for Rohingya relocation. Better look into the fact and come to the realisation if anything better could be done for the wretched Rohingya people. Even then if you are dissatisfied, raise your voice against Myanmar and force it to accept its nationals the way internationally acceptable repatriation takes place.    

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