Hasina will open Bhasan Char island project to house 100,000 Rohingyas on Oct 4

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the housing project for Rohingya refugees at the Bhasan Char island in the southeastern district of Noakhali on Oct 4.

Mohammad Habibul Kabir Chowdhury, an additional secretary at the disaster management and relief ministry who heads the Refugee Cell, revealed the date on Monday.

The government was yet to decide when it will formally start relocating the Rohingyas to the island, he told reporters at the Secretariat in Dhaka. 

It might take ‘some time’ to start relocating the refugees to the island after the inauguration of the project by Hasina, Rohingya, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Abul Kalam Azad told bdnews24.com.

“Infrastructural work has progressed much. But many other issues like the refugees’ supervision, responsibilities, management, administration and law enforcement remain,” Azad said.

“The question of whether the international organisations will go there (to help the refugees like the groups are doing in Cox’s Bazar) is also there.

“So it might take some time, but we will respond the way the government wants. We want to complete it with everyone on board,” he added.

Habibul said 80 percent of the project to house the Rohingyas on the island was completed.

“We will inspire the Rohingyas, show their leaders the island before relocating them. We also want the international organisations to visit the island,” he said.

The UN and different other international donor groups visited the island on Saturday, he said.

“They are happy. But they have some findings. We will address those issues,” he added.

Besides homes, cyclone shelters, warehouses, a jetty and a dam have been constructed on the island, according to the additional secretary.

The cyclone shelters would also be used as health and education facilities, he said.

The Rohingyas will get the opportunity to farm fish and cattle on the island, according to Habibul.

The Bangladesh Navy is implementing the project under the Prime Minister’s Office at an estimated of Tk 23.12 billion. The project is to be fully completed with the government’s own funds by 2019.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council or ECNEC cleared the ‘Asrayan-3 (the construction of residences and necessary security infrastructure for the housing of 100,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in Noakhali’s Hatia) on Nov 28 last year.

The government has long planned to move some of the around 400,000 Rohingya refugees, who fled persecution in Myanmar in the past few decades, to Noakhali’s island Upazila of Hatia.

On Aug 25 last year, the Myanmar army launched a crackdown on the Rohingyas, forcing over 700,000 of the ethnic minority to cross the border and take shelter in overcrowded refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.   

Bhashan Char, also known as Thengar Char, at Hatia is 10,000 acres at high tide and 15,000 acres at low tide. No-one lives on the island, which is mostly used for cattle grazing.

In 2013, the area was declared a forest reserve. Motor boats are the only mode of travel to the river islands. It takes between three to three-and-a-half hours to travel to Hatia.

Earlier this year, Reuters published a report calling the island dangerous for habitation, saying it was prone to bandit attacks, floods and cyclones. A report from the Bangladesh Forests Division last February also called it unsuitable for habitation.

A few months later a report by the Noakhali district administration declared Bhasan Char to be similar to other river islands in the area. There will be no problems building settlements if the relevant infrastructure is in place, the report said.