It had been more than three hours since we boarded the Bangladesh Navy ship. The sun was setting, and the sky slowly turned shades of orange and gold. A distant lighthouse came into view, and not long after, an island covered in greenery and trees appeared. We noticed a few dinghy boats anchored near the shore. Filled with excitement, we turned on our phone cameras. Zooming in, we spotted buffaloes roaming freely and grazing peacefully in the shallows. A large signboard appeared: “Forward Base Bhasanchar, Bangladesh Navy.” We knew we had reached the island in the Bay of Bengal that is home to nearly 37,000 Rohingya refugees.

A blurry view of the signboard emerged at sunset, photographed from a distant Navy ship. Photo credit: Al Muktadir Elahi Esmam

The sight of the island stirred memories of our journey to this moment–of long hours spent reviewing literature, designing (and re-designing) research questionnaires, and extensive logistical planning. As we stepped onto Bhasanchar, a wave of questions flooded our minds: How would this island differ from refugee camps on the mainland? Would this place mirror the ‘prison island’ portrayal we had come across in media reports? How did Rohingya refugees perceive living on this island? Do they feel safe, isolated, or hopeful?

In this article, we share reflections from our fieldwork and contemplate the questions that arose as we approached the shores of Bhasanchar. We are Bangladeshi researchers who have spent over two years researching the experiences and perceptions of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, doing extensive fieldwork in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar. We arrived in Bhasanchar in December 2024. During our intense three-day visit, we spoke with many humanitarian workers, government officials and Rohingya refugees on Bhasanchar. While we went there to ask questions, we also had a strong desire to witness, listen, and learn.

How is life in Bhasanchar different from the mainland camps in Ukhiya?

We arrived just before sundown that day. A realisation immediately struck us as we wandered around the area near our accommodation: we had never walked through mainland refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar at night. Indeed, most researchers, humanitarian actors, and government officials there are required to leave the camps by the afternoon due to security protocols. This is not the case on Bhasanchar.

One of the first things we noticed was the closeness and the relationships between government officials, humanitarian workers, and the refugees on Bhasanchar, contrasted with those in the mainland camps. There is a sense of shared space, intimacy, and familiarity among those living there, unlike the mainland camps, where humanitarian workers and government staff left by late afternoon. On Bhasanchar, most Bengali humanitarian workers lived near refugees and, in most cases, lived in similar housing clusters as the refugees. They shopped at the same bazaars, moved through the same spaces, and interacted with each other after work hours. There were also a few high-rise buildings housing the offices of humanitarian organisations and law enforcement agencies. Of the 120 clusters on the island, only 64 were occupied during our visit. Bhasanchar felt a lot less congested than the mainland camps, likely due to both the engineered spaces and the fact that the island was operating far below its holding capacity.

The predominant colours of Bhasanchar and Cox’s Bazar also marked two distinct geographies of refuge. On the mainland, Rohingya refugees reside in sprawling makeshift camps in hilly areas. Temporary shelters are made using bamboo, pitched roofs built with corrugated sheets, blue tarpaulin, or thatch. In contrast,  Bhasanchar is characterised by grey cement walls and red tin roofs arranged in structured rows along wide concrete (and sometimes brick-layered) streets. At first glance, the infrastructure in Bhasanchar appeared solid, though we would later see that housing clusters are built with thin walls that do not reach the ceiling. Having been invited to the home of a Rohingya refugee named Hasan (pseudonym), we could see the lack of privacy they afforded. Multiple families were living in different rooms in one housing cluster. Voices, daily rhythms, and intimacies of life easily passed through these walls.

Inside a refugee family’s room in a shared housing cluster in Bhasanchar, where open ceilings offer little privacy. Photo credit: Nafisa Tabassum

Unlike the hurriedly improvised refugee camps on the mainland, the Bangladesh government took a more planned and directed approach to Bhasanchar. In addition to providing humanitarian aid, we came across some livelihood activities on the island, including farming and fishing. These are encouraged by the Bangladesh government in Bhasanchar, unlike in Cox’s Bazar, where work opportunities are constrained and largely informal.  Indeed, refugees were told that they could work once they relocated to Bhasanchar, though in reality, only a few Rohingya families are able to find work and earn an income, in part due to the highly limited links to markets. Their mobility is restricted by their remote location and government surveillance, and refugees can’t access the local labour markets on the mainland. We spoke to several refugees who carried the weight of unmet expectations and some regrets. While the island offers shelter, it has yet to live up to its promises of providing the dignity that comes from being able to work and earn an independent living.

Based on conversations with a few humanitarian aid workers, we reconstructed a picture of Bhasanchar’s justice system in our minds. We were told of gender-based violence, including rape, within the Rohingya community, that are among the most harrowing crimes on the island. We learned that Rohingya women and girls often needed protection from people known to them, and that they might struggle to avoid perpetrators on the small island. Although there is a significant security presence, the island lacks a prison facility and seeking justice is a costly pursuit. The nearest jail is on the mainland in Noakhali, and transporting an accused person there is both costly and logistically challenging. Typically, five police officers are required to escort a single Rohingya individual, adding to the overall transport and administrative costs. The Camp-in-Charge (CiC) of Bhasanchar, vested with administrative magistrate powers, often handles legal matters, and offenders may be released with minimal punishment to limit expenses. The disposition of an individual CiC and whether they are empathetic, risk-averse, or simply overwhelmed by the workload can determine the outcome of legal processes. The average tenure of a CiC in Bhasanchar is short, between one week and eight months at most. This complicates governance and operations on Bhasanchar as the island dynamics are complex and unique, and take months to understand.

Is Bhasanchar truly a ‘prison island’?

In contrast to Cox’s Bazar, where camp residents navigate layers of bureaucracy to enable formal movement, in Bhasanchar, Rohingya refugees move freely on the island. Permission was only required for travel to the mainland, and we had come across reports about Rohingya refugees caught while attempting to escape from the island. Although the number of such reports has decreased in recent times, it does not mean that Rohingya refugees are not fleeing from the island anymore, as was made clear to us in informal conversations with law enforcement agencies, humanitarian workers, and Rohingya refugees themselves. Some of the refugees we spoke to expressed feeling trapped. There was a quiet but present longing to leave and a sense of restlessness. Bhasanchar has been widely painted as a “prison-like island” for Rohingya refugees. However, before visiting, we did not fully grasp the layered constraints experienced by the different groups of people living there.

During an informal conversation with a Rohingya man, we learned that while refugees were allowed to visit their relatives in the mainland camps in Cox’s Bazar, the process for obtaining permission from the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) or National Security Intelligence (NSI) was lengthy and complex. It often took around four to five months, and sometimes came at a personal cost of up to BDT 6,000 (49.32 USD), including informally paying a camp Majhi to submit the application. This economy of access has been described before, notably by M Sanjeeb Hossain and Maja Janmyr (2022). We realised that, in most cases, not much had changed in the past three years since February 2022, at least in this regard.

After receiving formal clearance from the relevant authorities, a boat carrying Rohingya refugees sets out for the mainland. Photo credit: Nafisa Tabassum

Due to the geographical location of Bhasanchar, it is not an easy journey to travel to the mainland, not only for the refugees but also for the humanitarian aid workers and government officials who live there. The narratives of Bhasanchar are often – and understandably so –  portrayed through the lens of the Rohingya refugees who live there, though they are not alone on the island. As we travelled from a crowded city like Dhaka, the island felt airy and spacious to us. Most importantly, we had a known departure date. But for many others, Bhasanchar was a place for an indefinite stay. During our conversation with humanitarian aid workers, they shared the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives on Bhasanchar. Many of them live and work on the island without their families, who are not permitted to visit—even if they wish to. It is also not possible for them to leave at will due to the island’s remoteness. We visited Bhasanchar during the winter, and at that time, the Navy ship operated only two days a week to carry passengers between the island and the mainland. If a humanitarian aid worker needed to travel to the mainland for a family emergency, they would have to rent a speedboat, which is expensive, costing somewhere between BDT 14,000 (115.10 USD) and 15,000 (123.30 USD). Even then, it is not guaranteed that the journey would be possible, as favourable weather conditions determine whether travel between the island and the mainland is possible on any given day or time.

Concluding thoughts from afar

As John Stuart Mill wrote in an essay in 1869, “After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature”. On Bhasanchar, the longing for freedom is clear – in the frustrations of humanitarian aid workers who could not leave the island for prolonged periods, and in the accounts of Rohingya refugees whose choices of movement remained significantly limited. Although the humanitarian aid workers often had the privilege to pay to move from the island or to leave the job altogether, the refugees there did not have that privilege. What is at stake is not only about food or shelter, but also about space and individual agency. Perhaps this is why, in its absence, some refugees continue to risk everything and choose tumultuous journeys across the sea.

Brief bursts of fieldwork like this one cannot offer complete answers, something we have learned early on in our experience as early-career researchers. This particular glimpse revealed fragments of how life unfolds differently than in the sprawling camps on the mainland. There is hardly an absolute truth about Bhasanchar. We learned, for instance, the correct spelling is “Bhasanchar”, not “Bhasan Char”. We returned to our desks in Dhaka with new scribbles in notebooks, new perspectives in audio files and an urgency to transcribe and analyse. In our quest to better understand the island and its inhabitants, getting the spelling right is a good place to start.  

*To protect the anonymity of a Rohingya refugee who participated in this research, a pseudonym has been used in the article.

The authors of this article are the core members of the “Towards mitigating the precarious status of the Rohingya people in Bangladesh” project, which received co-funding from Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and the Cross-Border Conflict: Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) programme of the FCDO and wrote a model law for refugees in Bangladesh. The authors thank Dr M Sanjeeb Hossain and Samira Manzur, with whom they formed the research team of the Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), BRAC University, that visited Bhasanchar, and Tabea Campbell Pauli of The Asia Foundation for helpful comments while writing this essay.