“Like Prisoners”: The Mass Arbitrary Detention and ‘Warehousing’ of Rohingya Refugees from Myanmar on Bhasan Char in Bangladesh

Dr. Ken MacLean, Zaw Win, John Quinley, Patrick Phongsathorn, and Rohingya consultant “R.M.” wrote a report “Like Prisoners”: The Mass Arbitrary Detention and “Warehousing” of Rohingya Refugees’ on Bhasan Char in Bangladesh for Fortify Rights.

Based on 102 interviews from May 2020 to October 2025, [this report] exposes how the Bangladesh government is depriving tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees and genocide survivors from Myanmar of their rights to liberty and freedom of movement by confining them arbitrarily on Bhasan Char—a remote, silt island in the Bay of Bengal.

It urges the government of Bangladesh to close down Bhasan Char as a site of refugee confinement and to protect the refugees’ rights to freedom of movement, education, livelihoods, and legal status.