Dhaka, Bangladesh (CU)_ According to the latest police report, thousands of refugees have been displaced following a massive fire that destroyed portions of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. Around 850,000 individuals of the persecuted Muslim minority reside in a network of camps in the border region of Cox Bazar in Bangladesh. Most of those refugees survived the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that UN investigators said was carried out with genocidal intent.
Kamran Hossain, a representative of the Armed Police Battalion, which is in charge of the camp’s security, said, “About 1,200 houses were burnt in the fire”. According to him, the fire began at Camp 16 and quickly spread through bamboo and tarpaulin tents, displacing over 5,000 refugees who were left homeless. He told the media, “The fire started at 4.40pm and was brought under control at around 6.30pm”.
According to a 22-year-old refugee Abdur Rashid, the fire was so massive that he had to flee for his life and safety as his house and belongings were consumed by the flames. He explained, “Everything in my house was burnt. My baby and wife were out. There were a lot of things in the house. I saved 30,000 taka (US$350) from working as a day labourer. The money was burnt in the fire. I am now under the open sky. I lost my dream.”
The 29-year-old refugee, Mohammad Yasin, expressed his dissatisfaction over the absence of fire safety equipment in the camps. He said, “Fire occurs here frequently. There was no way we could put out the fire. There was no water. My home is burnt. Many documents, which I brought from Myanmar, are also burnt. And it is cold here”.
Rohingya camp is the largest refugee community in the world. Last March, 15 people were killed and over 50,000 were displaced in Bangladesh due to a massive fire that devastated the Rohingya camp. Bangladesh has been lauded for accepting refugees who streamed across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, but was not fully successful in providing them with permanent residences.
