Bhashan Char Island:
The Bangladesh Authorities recently moved around 1,750 Rohingya Muslims to a controversial island in the Bay of Bengal called the “Bhashan Char Island”. This move by Bangladesh was opposed by the refugees already living on the island.
About Bhashan Char:
- The island is also known as Char Piya.
- It is in Hatiya Upazila, Bangladesh.
- The island is located in the Bay of Bengal at about 6 kilometres from Sandwip island and 60 kilometres from the mainland. It has an area of 40 square kilometres.
- The island was formed in the year 2006 by Himalayan silt.
- The Government of Bangladesh have planned to construct 1,440 buildings on the island.
- The building will also include 120 cyclone shelters.
- The buildings were constructed with the objective of relocating the 100,000 Rohingya refugees from the mainland camps of Cox’s Bazar.
- Recently, in August 2019, Ashrayan Project (Ashrayan-3) was expended to build 100,000 homes on the island.
Cox’s Bazar
- It is a city, fishing port, tourism centre and district headquarters of the southern Bangladesh.
- This city is famous for long natural sandy beach.
- It is also known as the Panowa.
Sandwip island
- It is an island along the south-eastern coast of Bangladesh in Chittagong District. The island is a part of Sandwip Upazila.
Rohingya people:
- They are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who follow Islam.
- They reside in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Around 1.4 million Rohingyas lived in Myanmar until a displacement crisis of 2017 when 740,000 fled to Bangladesh.
- They are called as the most persecuted minorities in the world.
- They are denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law.
- They do not have the freedom of movement, state education and civil service jobs in Myanmar.
