DHAKA: According to officials, a fire that destroyed about 800 shelters and left thousands of people homeless swept through an Rohingya refugee camp in southeast Bangladesh in the early hours of Sunday ( Jan 7 ).
Three hours after the fire struck Camp 5 in Cox’s Bazar, a border region with Myanmar, just before 1am ( 1900 GMT ), fire service personnel and Rohingya volunteers put out the flames.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the migrant comfort and relocation commissioner for Bangladesh in Cox’s Bazar, added that there were no casualties in addition to the destruction of several other facilities, including learning centers.
Almost 7, 000 people have become homeless as a result of the fire, according to UNHCR, the UN’s refugee company, and 120 buildings, including mosques and medical facilities, have suffered damage.
The lieutenant Bangladeshi authorities official in charge of migrants, Mohammad Shamsud Douza, said,” We have made all the preparations. They are being given food and temporary homes.”
In Cox’s Bazar, the border region of Bangladesh, roughly a million people of the Muslim majority from Myanmar reside in squalid, bamboo-and-plastic tents, with the majority of them fleeing an army assault in 2017.
According to UNHCR,” The cause of the fire is officially unknown, and we are assured by the government officials that an investigation will be conducted.”
In the cramped shelters with its makeshift buildings, fires frequently start. In March 2021, a huge fire claimed the lives of at least 15 migrants and destroyed more than 10,000 homes.
After nearly 2,800 homes and more than 90 features, including hospitals and learning centers, were destroyed in a blaze last season, about 12, 000 people were left homeless. It was referred to as a “planned work of damage” by an investigating screen established by the panel.