35 Rohingya fleeing Bhasan Char detained in Chattogram

The detainees claim they each paid brokers Tk 3,000 to 4,000 to travel towards Ukhiya

A total of 35 Rohingya, including women and children, have been detained in Chattogram after fleeing Bhasan Char.

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) caught the group from the area near embankment adjacent to Patenga sea beach during a raid.

According to a media statement from RAB-7, the authorities received information about the presence of the escapees near Patenga Beach and launched an operation to detain them.

They were later handed over to Patenga Model Police Station.

The detainees include men, women, and children of different ages, the statement said.

Speaking to journalists at the Patenga Police Station premises, the Rohingya said they belonged to several families.

They claimed “poor living conditions and lack of livelihood opportunities” in Bhasan Char drove them to leave the island and attempt to travel to Ukhiya via Chattogram with the help of brokers.

According to them, each person paid Tk 3,000 to 4,000 to the brokers for the trip.

Many of them said they had no plans to return to Bhasan Char. “Ukhiya is a more suitable place for us,” one detainee said.

Nearly 1.1 million Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017 amid persecution in Myanmar.

With the repatriation process stalled, the government began relocating a portion of the refugee population to Bhasan Char, an island in the Meghna estuary near Hatia Upazila, to ease pressure on the overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar.

Spread across 13,000 acres, or 5,260 hectares, the island has been developed with 120 cluster villages to accommodate over 100,000 people.

The first phase of relocation from the Cox’s Bazar camps to Bhasan Char began on Dec 4, 2020.

Since then, there have been multiple incidents of Rohingya attempting to escape the island and being caught in the process.