101 East

A rare look inside Bangladesh’s island camp for Rohingya refugees

101 East meets the Rohingya refugees living in exile on the remote Bangladeshi island of Bhashan Char.

Bangladesh is home to the world’s largest refugee camp, hosting more than a million Rohingya refugees who fled a brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military in 2017.

Five years later, the camp is beset by overcrowding, squalid conditions and crime.

To ease these pressures, authorities have sent more than 23,000 refugees to a remote island, where they plan to eventually house 100,000.

But the Rohingya are unable to leave, prompting rights groups to describe it as an island jail, plagued by cyclones and a lack of adequate healthcare, employment and education.

101 East meets the Rohingya families living in exile on Bhashan Char.