Bhasan Char
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Bhasan Char ( bn, ভাষাণচর), also known as Char Piya, is an island in
Hatiya Upazila Hatiya ( bn, হাতিয়া) is an upazila (sub-district) of Noakhali District in Bangladesh's Chittagong Division. It encompasses several islands of Bangladesh, most notably Hatiya Island, Bhasan Char, Nijhum Dwip and Jahaijar Char, Jaha ...
,
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
. Until 2019 it was known as Thengar Char. It is located in the
Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...
, about from
Sandwip Sandwip ( bn, সন্দ্বীপ, Shondip) is an island located along the southeastern coast of Bangladesh in the Chattogram District. Along with the island of Urir Char, it is a part of the Sandwip Upazila. Description Sandwip is locate ...
island and from the mainland.


History

The island was formed by Himalayan
silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel ...
in 2006. It spans . The Government of Bangladesh planned to construct a total of 1,440 buildings, including 120 cyclone shelters, to relocate 100,000 Rohingya refugees from the mainland camps of Cox's Bazar. The Government of Bangladesh first suggested resettling Rohingya refugees on the island in June 2015. The proposal was characterized by the
United Nations Refugee Agency The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integratio ...
as "logistically challenging". On January 26, 2017, the Bangladeshi government ordered their resettlement nonetheless.
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
called it "a human rights and humanitarian disaster in the making". In August 2019 the government announced an expansion of the Ashrayan Project (Ashrayan-3) to build 100,000 homes. The houses are built four feet above the ground, in order to protect the refugees from high tidal waves. The public works had amounted to 309.5 million takas by December 2019, a 34% increase from the initial allocation. The additional projects include raising the flood-protection embankment from to , and construction of cluster villages, mosques, shelter stations, hospitals, water channelling infrastructure, roads, infrastructure for farming and numerous other land development works under the project. The Bangladesh Navy built much of the infrastructure. In January 2020, the project was moving forward despite opposition from Rohingya leaders and human rights groups. Bangladesh's minister for refugee affairs stated the island is "ready for habitation", though he gave no timetable for the relocation. The government had not permitted foreign journalists or Rohingya leaders to travel to Bhasan Char at the time. Between December 2020 and January 2021 the first two groups totalling around 4,000 Rohingya had already been sent to the island. On the 29th of January another 1,778 Rohingya refugees started their journey to the island, with a fourth group to be moved the next day. The process of moving Rohingya refugees will continue until 100,000 have arrived in the island, according to authorities. The Bangladesh government had spent $112 million by this time. A United Nations delegation visited the island for the first time from 17 to 20 March 2021. By this time 13,000 Rohingya lived on the island. The UN Refugee Agency has signed a memorandum in helping the refugees here. The Rohingya may work and contribute to the economy, but may not move off the island. In principle, the island was seen as a temporary solution until the refugees could return home. Some of the first group to move to the island spoke of being coerced. Others spoke of deciding to relocate from the overcrowded camps of Cox's Bazaar due to the frequent violence there. The Bangladesh government hoped to assuage UN concerns and that the refugees would get international assistance. As of May 2022, the Government of Bangladesh has relocated approximately 28,000 Rohingya refugees to Bhasan Char.


References

{{Noakhali District Islands of the Bay of Bengal New islands Islands of Bangladesh Hatiya Upazila