Wrapping up a three-day visit to Bhasan Char, a UN delegation said it wants to continue dialogue with the government.

"The United Nations is grateful to the government of Bangladesh for its facilitation of the visit and looks forward to continuing the dialogue," Mostafa Mohammad Sazzad Hossain, assistant communication officer at UNHCR Bangladesh, told The Daily Star yesterday.

Meanwhile, a delegation of foreign diplomats stationed in Dhaka is likely to visit the island in Noakhali's Hatiya on April 3 to take a first-hand view of the housing facility for 100,000 Rohingyas.

Sources said the envoys may go to the island by helicopter and are likely to return the same day.

The development comes following an impasse of more than a year between the government and the UN regarding the global body's technical assessment of the housing facility.

The government has already relocated some 13,000 Rohingyas to Bhasan Char from Cox's Bazar in phases since December last year. It is in the process of relocating more in the coming days.

The UN team included five officials from the UNHCR, four from the World Food Programme, three from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, two from United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund and one official each from the International Organisation for Migration, World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Population Fund and United Nations Department of Safety and Security.

After the visit, the delegation, in a statement, said, "A United Nations team completed its first visit to Bhasan Char from March 17-20 in 2021. The team was made up of 18 experts from different UN agencies engaged in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh. The visit was facilitated and accompanied by officials of the government of Bangladesh."

It said, "The UN team travelled by boat from Chittagong to Bhasan Char and back. During the visit, the UN team appraised the needs of Rohingya refugees living on Bhasan Char, including through meetings with Rohingya men, women, boys, and girls. The UN team also met with members of the local authorities and security agencies working on the island, as well as some of the NGOs and traders operating there."

UNHCR official Mostafa said the UN team also visited the infrastructure and facilities on Bhasan Char. "This included the accommodation, health facilities, multi-purpose structures, police and fire stations, transport infrastructure, power and telecommunications systems and the flood embankment."

The delegation, led by Fumiko Kashiwa, assistant representative of the Bangladesh chapter of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), will submit its report on the trip to the foreign ministry.

Government officials expressed optimism that the UN would be involved in the relocation of Rohingyas after the visit, as the facilities on Bhasan Char are much better than those in Cox's Bazar.

Bangladesh Navy implemented the Tk 3,100 crore housing project after some 750,000 Rohingyas had fled a military crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2017 and took shelter in camps in Teknaf and Ukhia.

Apart from the risk of landslides in the hilly terrain, the government cited issues such as drug peddling, human trafficking, gender-based violence, conflicts between factions of the refugee communities in Cox's Bazar, and environmental degradation as major reasons for the relocation.

The UN had raised concerns over risks of tidal surge and cyclone at the remote island, but the government said with 120 brick-built cluster villages and 120 cyclone shelters, flood protection embankments, facilities for education, farming and fishing, hospitals and playgrounds, the Char is a much better living place than the Cox's Bazar camps.

The UN said it wanted to send one of its technical teams to the island to assess the housing facilities. Asked by the government, it even submitted the terms of reference for the visit in December 2019. The move got stalled after that.

Project officials said separate buildings for the UN and other international aid agencies have also been constructed on Bhasan Char.

After relocation of the first batch of Rohingyas in December last year, some 44 NGOs volunteered to go there and started providing humanitarian assistance to the refugees. There were concerns over how funds needed for 100,000 Rohingyas would be managed after their relocation.

Sources said it seems that the UN team is happy seeing the facilities and its report would be positive.