TANIA RASHID:

It's only a relative safety. Close to half-a-million have fled murder and persecution by the army of Myanmar to seek refuge in camps in Southern Bangladesh.

The Muslim Rohingya have lived in mainly Buddhist Myanmar for centuries, but are viewed as illegal ethnic Bangladeshis by the Myanmar government.

The de facto leader of Myanmar, Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied a U.N. charge of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya'.

But in the last eight months, the numbers of Rohingya fleeing for their lives have surged to more than 70,000. But now their lives are more precarious than ever before.

Monsoon season and a punishing cyclone damaged many Rohingya settlements. So, the Bangladeshi government plans to resolve the Rohingya's continued displacement by moving 60,000 of the refugees to this remote island.

Aid agencies like the UNHCR and Human Rights Watch have expressed alarm over the planned relocation.

Our journey to the island was difficult. We began a week before the cyclone. We traveled first by ferry, then by a private boat, where a local fishermen agreed to take us to the island.

It was a dangerous journey. Pirates are known to control these seas and take hostages for ransom. But the island is not easy to access. The tides are too high on the bigger ship, so we had to get a smaller boat to take us to the island.

We just made it on the island. We managed to find a muddy bog to land near, and get us across to the island. The government has already moved forward with the plan of making the island more habitable by planting trees. But this local official doesn't want the Rohingyas moving into his district.

He thinks it will create more problems for his community.