The New Humanitarian
Freelance journalist and regular TNH contributor
Kaamil Ahmed
Wednesday, 20 November 2019,
‘Every hour, you have a different thought about what's the best thing for your life.’
COX’S BAZAR
Ali Ahmed’s bamboo tea shop deep in Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps is a hub for debate and discussion for some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees living in these packed settlements.
Lately, the conversation has centred on one divisive issue: the government’s plans to transfer up to 100,000 refugees to Bhasan Char, a disaster-prone island near where Bangladesh’s Meghna River meets the Bay of Bengal.
Most Rohingya scoff at the idea of moving to a distant island exposed to cyclones and frequent floods. But in tea shops like Ahmed’s, the tone of these debates is changing.
Worn away by the grind of life in the camps and the dimming prospects of a safe return home more than two years after 700,000
Rohingya were pushed out of Myanmar, some refugees, Ahmed for one, are reconsidering their options.
