バングラデシュ、ロヒンギャ難民を水害受けやすい島に移送

【コックスバザールＡＦＰ＝時事】バングラデシュは3日、ロヒンギャ難民を自国沖の島に移送する作業を開始した。同島はサイクロンや洪水の被害を受けやすい場所にあり、人権団体は難民の強制退去に当たると指摘している。（写真はバングラデシュ・ウキヤのキャンプからチッタゴンへ移送されるロヒンギャ難民）
　バングラデシュ南東部には、ロヒンギャ難民向けのキャンプが多数設けられている。劣悪な環境のこのキャンプには、２０１７年にミャンマー軍の攻撃から逃れてきた人々を中心に、約１００万人が暮らしている。
　その多くがミャンマーへの帰国を拒否していることや、キャンプ内に暴力的な麻薬密売組織や過激派が入り込んでいることから、バングラデシュ政府はキャンプの撤去を急ごうとしている。
　地方警察幹部によると、３日にバス２０台余りが約１０００人を乗せてコックスバザールのキャンプを出発し、港湾都市チッタゴンへ向かったという。当局は先に、第１段階で計２５００人を移送する計画を発表していた。
　関係者らの話では、難民はチッタゴンから軍の揚陸艦でブハシャンチャール島へ移送される予定。
　５２平方キロのブハシャンチャール島は、ここ数十年でベンガル湾に沈泥によって形成された島の一つ。ここにバングラデシュ海軍が、最低１０万人のロヒンギャ難民を収容できる施設と、高さ３メートルの堤防を建設した。
　地元住民によると、同島は数年前に水没したことがある上、同域で頻発するサイクロンにより４、５メートルの高潮に見舞われる恐れもあるという。
　ヒューマン・ライツ・ウオッチやアムネスティ・インターナショナルなどの国際人権団体は、難民の一部は退去を強制されたと批判している。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/12/04-12:21）

Bangladesh began transferring several hundred Rohingya refugees on Thursday to what the UN and rights groups worry is a dangerous low-lying island prone to cyclones and floods.
Almost a million Rohingya -- most of whom fled a military offensive in neighbouring Myanmar in 2017 -- live in a vast network of squalid camps in south-east Bangladesh.
With many of them refusing to return without guarantees for their safety and rights, and with violent drug gangs and extremists active on the sites, the Bangladeshi government has grown increasingly impatient to clear out the camps.
On Thursday at least 10 buses left the camps in the Cox's Bazar region, headed for the port city of Chittagong, police said.
Ten buses carrying some 400 have left for the island, local police chief Ahmed Sunjur Morshed told AFP.
From Chittagong the refugees were due to be taken by military landing craft to the island of Bhashan Char on Friday, officials said.
Earlier the officials told AFP they planned to move around 2,500 people to the low-lying silt island in a first phase.
Scores of other buses were standing by at the camps in the Cox's Bazar region, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
But it was unclear if more people would board the buses, with rights groups alleging that some of the refugees had been coerced into volunteering to be transferred.
Bhashan Char, measuring 13,000 acres (52 square kilometres), is one of several silty strips to have surfaced in the area in recent decades.
The Bangladesh Navy has built shelters there for at least 100,000 Rohingya refugees as well as a nine-foot (three-metre) embankment to prevent flooding.
But locals say high tides flooded the island as recently as a few years ago and that cyclones, a regular occurence in the region, can cause storm surges of four or five metres.
The United Nations office in Bangladesh issued a terse statement on Thursday saying it was not involved in the relocation process and had been given limited information.
It said the UN had not been allowed to independently assess the safety, feasibility and sustainability of the island as a place to live.
It said the refugees must be able to make a free and informed decision about relocating and that, once there, they should have access to education and health care -- and be able to leave if they wish.