The remote Bangladeshi island of Thengar Char disappears completely under several feet of water at high tide and has no roads or flood defence.
But that has not stopped the Bangladesh government from proposing relocation of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in camps in Cox’s Bazar, reports the Guardian.
Bangladesh said last month that the move was planned partly because the nearly 32,000 registered refugees were hampering tourism.
The UN refugee agency, which has been helping the Rohingyas since 1992, said it would be “logistically challenging,” the Guardian report says.
“At high tide the entire island is under three to four feet of water ... It is impossible to live there,” said a Forest Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The 10,000 acre Thengar Char, around 30km east of Hatiya, only emerged from the sea around eight years ago. The people of Hatiya, the nearest administrative unit, rarely go to Thengar Char because the place is frequented by pirates.
During the monsoon months of June of September, the sea remains perilous and the island is completely cut off from the mainland which is a two-hour journey by speedboats.
Moreover, Thengar Char falls in an area frequently hit by cyclones, which have killed thousands in Bangladesh’s southern coast in the past.
Hatiya’s top government official AHM Moyeenuddin told the Guardian that the island had been chosen by a team of government surveyors dispatched to the area on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s orders.
He admitted relocating thousands to the island would be challenging, but said the construction of cyclone shelters, a barrage and a hospital would be enough to make the place liveable.
Talking to the Guardian, Hatiya police chief Nurul Huda labelled Thengar Char an ideal place for Rohingya relocation. “All we need is a police station to maintain law and order.”
But the residents of Hatiya remain to be convinced by the proposal.
“We are already tired of Bengali pirates and rivernbank erosion. We do not want our peace disrupted any further,” said Abdul Halim, who took part in a recent protest by scores of islanders.
The Rohingya exodus was largely ignored until a crackdown on the people-smuggling trade in Thailand last month caused chaos as gangs abandoned their human cargoes on land and sea.
As Bangladesh and Myanmar face international scrutiny over the fate of the stateless Rohingya, some fear a plot to move them as far from scrutiny as possible.
“There are other islands nearby, habitable for humans,” said the forest department official. “But somehow, this island, which becomes inundated during every single high tide was proposed as the relocation site.”
