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Bangladesh: Fire breaks out at Cox's Bazar refugee camp

March 5, 2023

Aid agencies have said that a massive fire has broken out in a part of the cramped Cox's Bazar refugee camp.

https://p.dw.com/p/4OGsC
Rohingya refugees try to salvage their belongings after a major fire in their Balukhali camp at Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh
Rohingya volunteers from the camp helped to tackle the blazeImage: Mahmud Hossain Opu/AP/picture alliance

Cox's Bazar, one of the world's biggest refugee camps, was ravaged by a massive fire on Sunday, the UN and other aid agencies reported.

The camp is home mostly to Muslim Rohingya who have fled Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh.

The fire was reported to have broken out in the Balukhali camp in the early afternoon. Fire service official Emdadul Haque said there were no immediate casualties.

The UNHCR in Bangladesh wrote in a tweet that volunteers from the camp were tackling the fire. The agency also said it was giving support.

What do we know about the fire?

Local newspaper Dhaka Tribune reported that four fire services units had also been deployed.

"We currently don't have an estimate for damages but there are no reports of casualties," police superintendent at Cox's Bazar Rafiqul Islam told Reuters. He added that the blaze had been brought under control and that officials from fire, police and refugee relief departments were all on the scene.

"Some 2,000 shelters have been burnt, leaving about 12,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals shelterless," Mijanur Rahman, Bangladesh's refugee commissioner, told AFP, adding that 35 mosques and 21 learning centers were among the destroyed buildings.

Mohammad Shamsuddoza, a senior official at Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission, told German news agency DPA, that these were made mostly of bamboo and tarpaulin.

Another police official said that the cause of the fire had not yet been ascertained.

A seven-member team has been constituted to investigate the cause of fire and if the fire was an act of sabotage, local news paper Dhaka Tribune reported.

Rohingya refugees look for their any belongings after a major fire broke in Balukhali camp at Ukhiya in Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh
Thousands of homes have reportedly been destroyed in the fireImage: Mahmud Hossain Opu/AP/picture alliance

Cox's Bazar

The camp has seen similar fires in January 2022 and March 2021, with the latter killing 15 people and destroying more than 10,000 homes.

Over 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh to escape state oppression that the US has said amounts to genocide.

The number of Rohingya crossing the border shot up in 2017 when the military in Buddhist-majority Myanmar began a violent crackdown on the minority group.

Most Rohingya in Myanmar have been denied citizenship and other rights. Attempts by Bangladesh to send them back have failed as conditions have only worsened since the military took power in Myanmar in 2021.

ab/fb (AP, Reuters)