Bangladesh continues to move thousands of Rohingya Muslims to remote island

Authorities in Bangladesh on Friday moved more than 1,750 Rohingya Muslims to a controversial island in the Bay of Bengal despite complaints made by refugees already there.

A Navy ship packed with migrants on its top deck set off from the port city of Chittagong on Friday. Officials said over 3,000 Rohingya would be taken by boat to Bhashan Char island on Friday and Saturday from congested camps on Bangladesh's border with Myanmar.

With the new arrivals, some 7,000 Rohingya would be on the 13,000-acre (53-square kilometre) island.

The government has, however, said about 100,000 people could be settled on Bhashan Char from the camps.

Bangladesh has struggled to cope with more than 700,000 Rohingyas who fled across the frontier in 2017 after a Myanmar military crackdown on the Muslim minority. That added to 300,000 already in the camps.

Rights groups say many of the Rohingya have been moved againsttheir will and have also raised concerns over the safety of the island that is regularly flooded during the cyclone season.

Authorities want to move many of the new inhabitants before the cyclone season starts in April.

Bhashan Char -- a silty strip that did not exist two decades ago -- is situated in a region where about 700,000 people have died in storms in the past 50 years.

The United Nations says the relocation should be voluntary and it has not been involved in the operation.