DHAKA, 28 December, 2020, (TON): Bangladesh is set to move a second batch of Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal this month, officials said on Sunday, despite calls by rights groups not to carry out further relocations.

More than 1,600 of the Muslim minority from Myanmar were taken to Bhashan Char earlier this month, and Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said just under 1,000 are in the latest group heading for what he called a “beautiful resort”. "They will be moved to Chittagong first and then to Bhasan Char, depending on the high tide," one of the officials said. The officials declined to be named as the issue had not been made public.

Mohammed Shamsud Douza, the deputy Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees, said the relocation was voluntary. "They will not be sent against their will."

He said a 12 km long embankment had been built to protect the island from floods along with housing for 100,000 people. “No one is forced to go there,” he said, adding that people can live a better life there with greater access to healthcare and education.

The United Nations has said it has not been allowed to carry out a technical and safety assessment of Bhasan Char, a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, and was not involved in the transfer of refugees there.

Bangladesh says the move will ease chronic overcrowding in camps that are home to more than 1 million Rohingya.

But refugees and humanitarian workers say some of the Rohingya have been coerced into going to the island, which emerged from the sea 20 years ago.

Several attempts to kickstart repatriation of Rohingya to Myanmar have failed after refugees said they were too fearful of further violence to return.

Over a million Rohingya refugees have fled violence in Myanmar in successive waves of displacement since the early 1990s.