A fire raced through a crammed camp of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s southern coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, gutting more than 1,000 shelters and leaving thousands homeless, a fire official and the UN said yesterday.
The fire broke out at about midnight on Saturday at Kutupalong camp in Ukhiya and spread quickly, fanned by strong winds, Ukhiya Fire Station chief Shafiqul Islam said.
No casualties were reported, he said.
Photo: AFP
“The fire was big, and it destroyed about 1,040 shelters in the camp,” he said. “We took about two hours to get the blaze under control, engaging 10 fire units from Ukhiya and other stations in the district.”
An Associated Press reporter at the scene said that thousands of refugees, including women and children, rushed to a nearby open field with their belongings as the fire started spreading aggressively during the early hours yesterday.
“We are suffering from the cold severely, facing a difficult situation. Currently, we are sitting by a stream with my grandchildren after narrowly escaping a life-threatening situation. Our homes have been destroyed by the fire,” 65-year-old Zuhura Begum said.
While it was not immediately clear how the fire started, Islam said that preliminary statements from the refugees suggested that it was caused by a mud oven.
Fire in the refugee camps is common and in the past similar incidents have gutted thousands of homes.
In March last year, a fire left thousands of refugees homeless temporarily.
More than 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar over several decades, including about 740,000 who crossed the border starting in late August 2017, when the Myanmar military launched a brutal crackdown.
Conditions in Myanmar have worsened since a military takeover in 2021, and attempts to send back the refugees have failed. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said on several occasions that the refugees would not be sent back by force.
Muslim Rohingya face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and other constitutional rights.
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