<span style="color: #222222;">The third batch of Rohingya refugees living in camps at Cox's Bazar district sailed for relocation at the newly developed facility at the Bhashan Char island in Bangladesh on Friday.<br />'' <br />'' A total of 1778 refugees left for Bhashan char island in four navy ships from Chattogram port. In the earlier two rounds, close to 3500 Rohingya refugees have already been sent to the Bhashan Char facility. The relocation to Bhashan Char was started on December 4 last year.<br />'' <br />'' The Bhashan Char island is about 24 kilometres from the land point at Hatiya and 52 kilometres from Patenga which takes about 3-4 hours to cover by ship.<br />'' <br />'' Earlier, the refugees were brought to Chattogram from the Cox's Bazar camps on Thursday evening, AP quoted Bangladesh Navy commander Mozammel Haque. The Navy officer said that the fourth batch of Rohingyas will be sent to Bhashan char on Saturday.<br />'' <br />'' Bangladesh has maintained that the refugees are being relocated to the newly developed facility voluntarily as the camps at Cox's Bazaar are over crowded.<br />'' <br />'' Bhashan Char is an uninhabited island where the government of Bangladesh Navy has built shelter houses for more than one lakh Rohingya refugees at an estimated cost of Tk. 2,300 crore under its Ashrayan 3 project.<br />'' <br />'' The environmentalists say that the Bhashan char falls in an ecologically fragile area prone to floods, erosion and cyclones. However, the Bangladesh government insists that the location is safe with adequate safety measures like embankments and cyclone shelters built on the island for the refugees.<br />'' <br />'' Currently more than a million Rohingya are living in refugee camps in Bangladesh after fleeing the military crackdown in the Rakhine province of Myanmar in August 2017.</span><br />'' <br />''  <br />