Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
COMPILED FROM NEWS SERVICES
Decenber 5,2020
Authorities in Bangladesh on Friday sent the first group of more than 1,500 Rohingya refugees to an isolated island despite protests by human rights groups.
The 1,642 refugees boarded seven Bangladeshi naval vessels in the port of Chittagong for the trip to Bhashan Char, according to an official.
After about a three-hour trip, they arrived at the island, which was once regularly submerged by monsoon rains but now has flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals and mosques built at a cost of more than $112 million by the Bangladesh navy.