Thousands of Rohingya protest against conditions on BD island

DHAKA: Several thousand Rohingya staged "unruly" protests on Monday against living conditions on a cyclone-prone island off Bangladesh where they were moved from vast camps on the mainland, police said.

Since December, Bangladesh has shifted 18,000 out of a planned 100,000 refugees to the low-lying silt island of Bhashan Char from the Cox’s Bazar region, where around 850,000 people live in squalid and cramped conditions.

Most of them had fled a brutal military offensive in neighbouring Myanmar in 2017 that UN investigators concluded was executed with "genocidal intent". Monday’s protest involved up to 4,000 people, police said, and coincided with an inspection visit by officials from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

"The Rohingya who are there became unruly the moment the UNHCR representatives landed (on the island) by helicopter today," local police chief Alamgir Hossain told AFP. "They broke the glass on warehouses by throwing rocks. They came at the police ... Their demand is they don’t want to live here."

One Rohingya man confirmed to AFP that bricks were thrown and that police prevented them from entering a building where the UNHCR officials were present. An international rights activist said police used batons to disperse the protesters. Quoting Rohingya sources, he said several protesters were injured. Police, however, rejected the claim. A police spokesman said Rohingya protesters attacked officers, injuring several of them.