DHAKA – A huge fire swept through a refugee camp in Rohingya, southern Bangladesh, on Monday, destroying thousands of homes and killing several people, officials and witnesses said, in the worst fire that hit the settlement in recent years.
Videos and photos showed a fire destroying the Balukhali camp at Cox’s Bazar. Black smoke billowed over tents and burning tents as people struggled to retrieve their belongings.
“Firefighters, rescue and response teams and volunteers are in place to try to control the fire and prevent it from spreading further,” said Louise Donovan, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, at Cox’s Bazar.
Mohammed Shamsud Douza, the Bangladesh deputy government official in charge of the refugees, said the authorities are trying to control the fire.
Rohingya refugees in the camps said many houses were set on fire and several people died, but neither the authorities nor UNHCR could confirm the death toll. The cause of the fire has not been established.
More than a million Rohingya live in camps in southern Bangladesh, the vast majority having fled Myanmar in 2017 from a military-led crackdown that, according to UN investigators, was carried out with “genocidal intent”, denies Myanmar’s accusations.
Zaifur Hussein, a 50-year-old refugee who escaped the fire but lost his home and was staying with friends, said he believed dozens of people may have died and that fences around the camps made it difficult to escape.
“When we were in Myanmar, we faced a lot of problems … they destroyed everything,” he said. “Now it happened again.”
Snigdha Chakraborty, Bangladesh director of Catholic Relief Services, said she was concerned about the lack of medical facilities in the area.
“Medical facilities are basic and burns require sophisticated treatment, and hospital beds are already partially occupied with COVID-19 patients,” she said. “There will most likely be deaths because the fire is so big.”
A Rohingya leader at Cox’s Bazar, a piece of land on the border with Myanmar in southeastern Bangladesh, said he saw several bodies.
“Thousands of huts have been completely burned,” Mohammed Nowkhim told Reuters.
Another major fire hit the camp in January, destroying homes, but without causing casualties.
The risk of fire in densely populated fields is high, and Monday’s fire was the biggest so far, said Onno Van Manen, National Director of Save the Children in Bangladesh.
“It is another devastating blow to Rohingya refugees who live here. Just a few days ago, we lost one of our health centers in another fire,” he said.
UNHCR said humanitarian partners had mobilized hundreds of volunteers from nearby camps for the support operation, as well as vehicles and fire safety equipment.