Bangladesh Plans to Move Rohingya Refugees to Remote Island
Bangladesh plans to move thousands of Rohingya refugees to a remote, largely uninhabitable island.
A cabinet order, issued January 26, resurrects a highly controversial relocation plan that was first floated in 2015. Now Dhaka says it is preparing a list of names of people to be relocated to Thengar Char, a marshy island several hours off the coast that is submerged in water during monsoon season.
“There’s a fear that the influx of Rohingya Muslims from time to time will lead to a degradation of law and order situation, spread communicable diseases … and create various social and financial problems,” the statement said.
The order also requires other Rohingya to be kept in designated areas in order to prevent them “mixing in with local populations.” It directs officials to stop more Rohingya entering Bangladesh.
Some 69,000 Rohingya have fled a sweeping military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state since October, joining around 300,000 registered and unregistered Rohingya refugees already in neighboring Bangladesh.
White House: ‘Extreme Vetting’ for Refugees in Australia Deal
A Trump administration official said the U.S. would honor a deal to resettle refugees held in Australian-run offshore camps on two Pacific islands.
“The deal specifically deals with 1,250 people,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said. “There will be extreme vetting applied to all of them as part and parcel of the deal that was made.”
However, a White House source later told Australia’s ABC News that Trump was still considering whether to continue with the deal.
Around 1,250 people, most of whom have refugee status, are held in camps on Nauru Island and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island after trying to reach Australia by boat. Under President Obama, the U.S. had agreed to accept some of the refugees, but until Spicer’s comments yesterday, neither country had confirmed how many.
Exodus From South Sudan Continues Amid More Violence
The number of refugees fleeing violence in South Sudan continues to grow, as fresh clashes broke out between government and rebel forces in the north of the country.
The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said nearly 13,000 South Sudanese fled to Uganda in the week 18–24 January. Refugees told UNHCR they are fleeing the indiscriminate killing of civilians, nightly attacks on their homes, sexual violence, looting, arrest, torture and the lack of food.
Fighting erupted this week in Malakal, the capital of the oil-producing Upper Nile region, and the U.N.’s migration agency (IOM) said it was forced to evacuate staff, postponing the registration of nearly 3,000 people for humanitarian aid.
Since war broke out in December 2013, more than 1.83 million South Sudanese have been internally displaced and some 1.17 million people have fled to neighboring countries, most of them to Uganda.
“African nations are among the world’s largest and most generous hosts of refugees,” U.N. secretary general Antonio Guterres told an African Union summit this week. “African borders remain open for those in need of protection when so many borders are being closed, even in the most developed countries in the world.”
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