Adrift in The Bay: 280 Rohingyas rescued, taken to Bhashan Char
About 280 Rohingyas, who had been adrift in the Bay of Bengal for weeks, were rescued by Bangladesh Navy on Thursday and taken to Bhashan Char -- an island in Noakhali -- yesterday.
Mahbubul Alam Talukder, Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner of Bangladesh, confirmed it to The Daily Star yesterday.
Earlier, several international organisations, including the UN and EU, and rights bodies pointed out that two boats carrying about 500 Rohingyas were refused by Malaysia and Thailand in mid-April and had been floating in the sea since then.
The organisations called on Bangladesh and other countries in the region to shelter the stranded Rohingyas.
Bangladesh, in response, said she couldn't accommodate any more Rohingyas as she was already facing huge pressures to manage the 1.1 million Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar.
Nevertheless, Bangladesh, which have sheltered some 750,000 Rohingyas since Myanmar began a military crackdown on them in August 2017, has finally rescued a portion of the stranded Rohingyas.
The rest are believed to have been still floating adrift.
"It is a very tiny boat compared to its 280 passengers. They are starving. The navy has given them food, water and first aid," a Bangladesh Navy official told AFP after the rescue.
The boat was found around 40km south of the Saint Martin's Island, he said.
Authorities say they are likely to have come from Myanmar's Rakhine state rather than camps in southeastern Bangladesh, as they did not have identity cards issued by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, AFP reports.
On May 3, Bangladesh Navy sheltered at least 29 Rohingyas in Bhasan Char.
These Rohingyas swam to the shore in Cox's Bazar's Teknaf and were handed over to Bangladesh Navy by the locals.
Earlier on April 16, some 400 Rohingyas were rescued by Bangladesh authorities. They were, however, quarantined in the Rohingya camp healthcare facilities.
On May 4, Bangladesh Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said no more Rohingya would be sheltered in Cox's Bazar camps as they don't want to "pollute" the camps, for there are risks of Coronavirus infection.
"If any new Rohingya is to be sheltered, we will take them to Bhashan Char," he told The Daily Star.
Bangladesh Navy has built a housing facility of 120 cluster villages on the 40sqkm island in Bhashan Char under a Tk 2,312 crore project for accommodating one lakh of the nearly 1 million Rohingyas living in the cramped camps in Cox's Bazar.
However, the authorities had been considering shelving the relocation plan after the UN and other aid agencies opposed the plan saying there were risks of flood and cyclones and also that it did not have facilities for accommodating the aid agency officials.
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