Mokammel Shuvo

Only 2,000 visitors allowed per day as island reopens for two months

The tourist season in St Martin’s Island began yesterday with three cruise ships carrying 1,174 passengers from Cox’s Bazar’s Nuniachhara BIWTA jetty to the coral island.

Despite the government’s decision to allow overnight stays on Saint Martin’s Island from December, cruise ship operators and resort owners say bookings have been far below expectations for the first half of the month.

Near the Burmese School in Cox’s Bazar town, several vendors from indigenous communities, most of them women, were seen on both sides of the road in a simple, modest market setup.

An unfinished bridge over the nine-kilometre Jowari Canal has left nearly 50,000 residents of Varuakhali union in Cox’s Bazar Sadar struggling to cross the area for almost five years.

Groundwater levels are depleting rapidly across almost all upazilas in Cox’s Bazar, raising fears of an acute water crisis in the near future.

A Border Guard Bangladesh soldier died after being injured in a landmine explosion, allegedly planted by the Arakan Army along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, the latest in a series of incidents that have endangered security personnel and civilians.

Bangladesh’s only coral island, Saint Martin’s, officially reopened to tourists yesterday, but not a single ship departed as operators suspended services, citing a government ban on overnight stays.