[ad_1]
The fireplace hit Balukhali camp, one of many 32 camps in Cox’s Bazar district the place greater than 1.2 million folks stay.
A large hearth raced via a crammed refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims in southern Bangladesh, leaving hundreds homeless, a hearth official and the United Nations mentioned.
The blaze hit Camp 11 in Cox’s Bazar, a border district the place greater than 1,000,000 Rohingya refugees stay, with most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
“We at the moment don’t have an estimate for damages however there are not any reviews of casualties,” Rafiqul Islam, further police superintendent at Cox’s Bazar, informed Reuters information company.
Islam added that the blaze was beneath management and senior officers from the fireplace, police and refugee reduction departments had been current on the website.
The UNHCR in Bangladesh mentioned in a tweet that Rohingya refugee volunteers had been responding to the fireplace with the company and its companions offering assist. It mentioned a number of shelters and services had been destroyed because of fires.
Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury mentioned Balukhali Camp is among the 32 camps in Cox’s Bazar, the place greater than 1.2 million individuals are residing.
“The fireplace remains to be on and appears to have been attributable to a cooking cylinder. Many of the properties are fabricated from bamboo so the fireplace spreads rapidly,” mentioned Chowdhury.
He defined that the area the place the fireplace broke out is kind of hilly, making it troublesome for rescue to groups to achieve it and for households to flee.
“The well being services [in the area] are very rudimentary to have a quick response. There are numerous subject hospitals however not sufficient to answer 1.2 million folks,” he added.
Rohingya refugee volunteers skilled on firefighting & native hearth providers have managed the fireplace.
16 UNHCR funded Cell Hearth Combating Items helped attain the troublesome space.
A number of shelters and services destroyed.
Authorities, UNHCR & companions coordinating additional. pic.twitter.com/6qlerHlwbw
— UNHCR in Bangladesh (@UNHCR_BGD) March 5, 2023
A couple of million Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar over a number of a long time, together with about 740,000 who crossed the border beginning in August 2017, when the Myanmar navy launched a brutal crackdown.
Situations in Myanmar have worsened since a navy takeover in 2021, and makes an attempt to ship them again have failed.
Final 12 months, america mentioned the oppression of Rohingya in Myanmar quantities to genocide after US authorities confirmed accounts of mass atrocities in opposition to civilians by the navy in a scientific marketing campaign in opposition to the ethnic minority.
Largely Muslim Rohingya face widespread discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, the place most are denied citizenship and plenty of different rights.
[ad_2]