Second group of Rohingya refugees to be sent to remote island: officials
Bangladesh has announced plans to send the second group of Rohingya Muslim minority from neighboring Myanmar to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal this month, officials said on Sunday.
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Around 1,000 Rohingya refugees, members of a Muslim minority who have fled Myanmar, will be moved to the island in the next few days after Bangladesh relocated more than 1,600 early this month despite calls by rights groups not to carry out further relocations.
The relocation of the Muslim refugees will take place despite UN warnings that the international body had not been allowed to carry out a technical and safety assessment of the flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal.
The UN has also said that it had not been involved in transfer of the refugees.
This is while Bangladesh claims it is transferring only people who are willing to go and that the relocation will ease the overcrowded camps already populated by more than one million Rohingya refugees.
Nearly 1,500 Rohingya Muslims were sent to the island, 120 miles south of the capital Dhaka in early December despite concerns by the human rights groups and the United Nations.
Bangladeshi officials first proposed the island in 2015 as an option for some of the hundreds of thousands who have been displaced due to the brutal crackdowns by Myanmar military.