Inside Khurushkul: New homes, uncertain futures for Bangladesh’s climate displaced

The little boy is absorbed in his work. 

Squatting on a patch of grass between two five-story apartment buildings, he operates a yellow plastic excavator, scooping dirt into the pink bed of a toy truck. Behind him, the concrete facades rise in long, repetitive rows. A woman in an orange sari walks across the courtyard. A few shops occupy the ground floors.

Not far away, other children have turned a grassy clearing into a football field. Five boys are chasing the ball while another waits, barefoot, for a pass. The apartment blocks surrounding them are almost identical: rectangular buildings with recessed balconies, narrow windows and weathered white walls. 

The field is uneven, with scattered litter and patches of exposed earth.

Inside a small shop, a different scene unfolds. A woman in a brightly patterned headscarf sits behind a glass counter displaying inexpensive jewelry and accessories. She is handling a small item of merchandise. 

Across a wooden table, two girls are studying, their exercise books spread between them. A younger child leans over a colorful workbook, resting her head on her hands.

These are ordinary moments in an unusual place.

Khurushkul, on the outskirts of Cox’s Bazar, is home to one of Bangladesh’s most ambitious experiments in resettling people displaced by environmental disasters.

Built on land beside the Bakkhali River and the Maheshkhali–Cox’s Bazar navigation channel, the Khurushkul Special Ashrayan Project was conceived to accommodate 4,409 families who had spent years in vulnerable coastal settlements.

The government has promoted it as the world's largest climate refugee rehabilitation project, an ambitious claim that reflects its intended scale, although no independently established global ranking verifies the distinction.

From above, Khurushkul resembles a newly planned township. Apartment buildings stand in closely spaced rows, separated by concrete roads and rectangular courtyards. Beyond the last buildings, the land gives way to mudflats, mangroves and the broad expanse of the Bakkhali River.

For the people who have moved here, however, the significance of the project is measured less by its scale than by the unfamiliar experience of having a permanent roof.

Munirul Islam lives on the fourth floor of a building called Jhinuk with his five-member family. He moved to Kutubdia Para after the floods of 1997 and spent years living in conditions that offered little security against the weather.

“I never imagined that I would have a home of my own. Yet today, I am living in a permanent apartment in a multistory building,” Munirul told Daily Waadaa.

He is pleased with his apartment, although he does not pretend that the relocation has solved every problem.

“We are yet to form a community, and there are lots of problems,” he said. “But I am happy that I have a roof over my head and for my family.”

It is a distinction that runs through the Khurushkul project…the difference between receiving an apartment and rebuilding a life.

The making of a new township

Khurushkul began with a problem that had been accumulating for decades along the coast of Cox’s Bazar.

The cyclone of 1991 devastated communities along Bangladesh’s southeastern coastline, killing an estimated 138,000 people nationwide and displacing many more. Families who lost their homes moved toward Cox’s Bazar, settling on low-lying land near the airport and along the coast.

Some came from Kutubdia and other erosion-prone islands. Others had lost their homes to successive storms, tidal surges or the gradual disappearance of coastal land.

Over time, these settlements became established neighborhoods. Residents found work fishing, processing dried fish, carrying goods, driving rickshaws and working as day laborers. Their homes, often built from bamboo, corrugated metal and salvaged materials, remained exposed to the weather.

Then another pressure emerged.

The government wanted to expand Cox’s Bazar Airport, part of a broader effort to turn the coastal tourism destination into an international aviation hub. The airport expansion required the removal of settlements from adjacent land.

The resulting rehabilitation project brought together two different forms of displacement: families uprooted by environmental disasters and families required to move for infrastructure development.

Not every resident eligible for relocation had been displaced directly by climate change, and not every disaster affecting the region can be attributed solely to global warming.

Waadaa found at least three families who were not victims of any sort of climate change but currently living inside the project. They were interviewed but their details are not disclosed here as per their request.

In many ways, the project became a prominent part of Bangladesh’s response to a larger problem: how to provide permanent housing for coastal populations facing repeated environmental shocks.

The initiative dates to the middle of the previous decade, with implementation gathering pace under Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government. The Bangladesh Army was given responsibility for construction.

An official Ashrayan project publication described a development spread over approximately 253.59 acres, divided into residential, environmental buffer, tourism and dried-fish processing zones. The original master plan envisaged 139 five-story buildings and accommodation for 4,409 families. 

Later reporting described a revised residential plan of 129 buildings. The discrepancy reflects different project documents and stages of development; the precise final configuration requires reconciliation with the latest approved plans.

Each standard building contains eight apartments on each of four residential floors. The ground floor is largely open, intended for communal and practical use.

The flats are small, approximately 406 square feet, with space for sleeping, cooking and washing. Their size would be modest by urban middle-class standards. For families accustomed to precarious shelters, however, concrete walls, a separate kitchen and a permanent address represent a substantial change.

On July 23, 2020, the government formally handed over apartments to the first 600 families. The original allocations were made at a nominal payment of 1,001 taka.

By mid-2025, 122 residential buildings had reportedly been completed, although the pace of actual occupancy lagged behind construction. A finished building also does not necessarily mean that its intended residents have been selected, received their keys or moved in.

The business of starting over

Roksana Akter Swarnali has found one way to make the new settlement work for her.

She is employed, but she also runs a clothing business. During the coronavirus pandemic, she began selling clothes online. Later, recognising that the growing residential community needed local shops, she opened a clothing store inside the project.

“I have a job, and alongside it, I also run a clothing business,” Roksana told Waadaa. “I started selling clothes online during the coronavirus pandemic. Later, considering the needs of the residents of the Ashrayan Project, I opened a clothing shop here. Sales at the shop have been reasonably good.”

Her business illustrates a less visible part of resettlement.

When thousands of people move into new housing, they need groceries, clothing, school supplies, repairs, transport and other services. Some residents become customers. Others become entrepreneurs.

The back wall of Roksana’s shop is covered with shelves of folded garments wrapped in transparent plastic. Jars of colorful hair accessories stand on a counter. A sewing machine is positioned beside the merchandise. The shop is crowded with goods, furniture and the everyday objects of family life.

Children use a table as a study area, while an adult works nearby. But not everyone can establish a business.

Many of Khurushkul's residents previously depended on the sea. Fishermen needed access to boats and landing points. Dried-fish workers relied on processing yards, storage facilities and established networks of buyers.

Moving these families into apartment buildings changes their housing, but it can also change the economics of their work.

A fisherman who must travel farther to reach his boat faces additional costs. A dried-fish worker separated from processing facilities may lose access to regular employment. For daily wage earners, transport expenses can consume a significant share of modest earnings.

The government's master plan recognised this problem.

It included a dedicated dried-fish processing zone with proposed cold storage, ice plants, drainage, fishmeal and fish oil facilities, packaging centers and sales outlets. A tourism zone was also included, alongside an environmental buffer area. 

The intention was to preserve and modernise livelihoods rather than merely relocate workers.

Whether these facilities become fully operational, and whether residents can access them on commercially viable terms, will determine much of the project's economic outcome.

The broader experience of Bangladesh's Ashrayan housing program offers a warning.

A study published in the journal Housing Studies, based on interviews with 404 beneficiaries across 40 upazilas, found improvements in access to electricity, drinking water and sanitation. But it also identified problems arising from distant locations, limited employment opportunities and inadequate access to healthcare and commercial centers.

Some households had partly abandoned their allocated homes or moved back toward urban areas because of these difficulties. The study examined the wider Ashrayan program, not Khurushkul alone, but its findings are directly relevant to the challenges of large-scale resettlement. 

At Khurushkul, the government has attempted to address some of these concerns through infrastructure.

A bridge approximately 595 meters long across the Bakkhali River connects the project more directly with Cox’s Bazar. Water supply arrangements have been developed to address the area's saline groundwater, while plans include schools, a community clinic, playgrounds, religious institutions and emergency services.

Afzal Hossain, a former project director, acknowledged the difficulty of obtaining freshwater locally. “The water here is saline. That is why we have arranged safe drinking water from elsewhere,” he said, adding that drainage and other services were being provided.

Who gets the keys?

In August 2026, hundreds of families gathered for another stage of Khurushkul's rehabilitation program.

The district administration allocated apartments to 730 households through a lottery on August 2, bringing the number of families covered by the initial handover and the new allocation to 1,330.

For the new beneficiaries, the lottery determined something that years of uncertainty had left unresolved: which apartment they would be assigned. But the allocation process has become one of the project's most contentious issues. 

In July 2025, the interim government cancelled the original list of 4,409 beneficiaries, which had been prepared in 2011.

The official notification described the list as flawed, questionable and biased.

An earlier report by The Business Standard newspaper found that a review of the original list in 2016 had allegedly excluded more than 1,000 genuinely needy families and replaced them with politically connected individuals. 

Some married couples had allegedly received separate allocations despite belonging to the same household.  

In March 2025, Muhammad Yunus, then chief adviser to Bangladesh's interim government, visited Khurushkul and questioned whether the intended beneficiaries were actually receiving the homes.

He warned against allowing unauthorised occupants to take possession and called for transparency and accountability in the selection process.

“Constructing buildings is just a matter of funding, but if we fail to achieve the intended purpose, the entire effort becomes meaningless,” Yunus said during the visit, according to reporting by UNB. 

The cancellation of the beneficiary list was intended to correct those problems. But new allegations have emerged.

Several local residents have complained about multiple allocation serial numbers allegedly associated with the same family and the transfer of entitlements to other individuals in exchange for money.

One complaint identified two serial numbers, SKP-184 and SKP-183, as allegedly linked to a single family from South Kutubdia Para.

Three additional serial numbers — EKP-622, SKP-551 and SKP-500 — were cited in allegations that allocation rights had been transferred for payment.

The complainants also questioned how a serial number associated with East Kutubdia Para appeared on a list for South Kutubdia Para.

These allegations have not been independently established. They require examination of the original beneficiary records, national identity documents, family relationships and allocation histories.

The complaints were brought to the attention of Cox’s Bazar Sadar Upazila Nirbahi Officer Tahmina Akter on September 17, Waadaa learned. Tamanna however declined to give any comment.

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