Refugee camps to be moved to Hatiya

The government has planned to relocate thousands of registered Rohingya refugees living in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar for over two decades to Hatiya of Noakhali.

"The relocation of the Rohingya camps will definitely take place. So far informal steps have been taken according to directives of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina," Amit Kumar Baul, head of the government's Myanmar Refugee Cell, told AFP yesterday.

The move was partly prompted by concerns the camps were holding back tourism in Cox's Bazar, where locals flock to beach hotels and resorts, said Baul.

Talking to The Daily Star, Mohammad Abdullah, divisional commissioner of Chittagong, said they primarily selected some land in Hatiya for the relocation, but it was not finalised as they did not get the official decision yet. The cabinet has to approve the plan for the relocation to happen.

In November last year, the prime minister during a meeting with local officials of Chittagong expressed her desire to relocate the Rohingya refugees to a convenient place, he added.

Currently, around 32,000 refugees are living in two camps -- Kutupalang in Ukhia and Nayapara in Teknaf -- in Cox's Bazar bordering Myanmar. The camps are jointly run by the Bangladesh government and the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency.

In addition, more than 3 lakh unregistered Rohingya refugees live in Cox's Bazar and adjacent districts.

The undocumented Rohingyas live scattered, often within the local communities, moving about freely in the region and carrying out criminal activities, according to sources in the local administration.

Repatriation of Rohingya refugees has remained a major irritant between Bangladesh and Myanmar since 1991-1992 when a few hundred thousand Rohingyas, a minority Muslim population of Myanmar, fled their homes in northern Rakhine state due to state-sponsored persecutions and took shelter in Bangladesh.

Though many of them were repatriated in phases till 2005, the Myanmar government has kept the process stalled for the last 10 years.

Thousands of persecuted Rohingya migrants attempted perilous journeys by boat to Southeast Asia and ended up in the jungles of the Thai coasts, according to newspaper reports.