The Bangladesh government has reassured the voluntariness, safety, and overall viability of relocating Rohingya refugees to Bhashan Char.
The relocation process is being carried out with utmost transparency, and it is strictly adhering to the principle of voluntariness, said the government.
The government issued the statements in a press release on Thursday.
The statement follows the second phase of the relocation process that transported 1,804 Rohingyas to Bhashan Char on December 29.
Earlier, the first phase of the process relocated 1,642 Rohingya refugees to the island on December 4.
The statement says that the Rohingyas who were relocated decided to be shifted there voluntarily, encouraged by positive reports from relatives already living on the island located in the Bay of Bengal.
It also insists that the process involves absolutely no use of force, intimidation or use of money to influence decision of participants.
Moreover, the government also assured that Bhashan Char is completely safe and suitable for human habitation, citing facilities already established on the island such as healthcare, cyclone shelters, options for economic activities, sea-truck services, etc.
However, the statement urged all parties to remember that Rohingyas are Myanmar nationals that Bangladesh is hosting on a temporary basis purely to avoid a humanitarian disaster, and called on the international community to put pressure on Myanmar to repatriate the refugees to their homeland.
Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar district and most of them entered Bangladesh since August 25, 2017, amid a military crackdown on Rohingyas in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, which the UN called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" and other rights groups dubbed as "genocide."
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