Fire destroys a refugee camp in Bangladesh | News

More than 2,000 shelters destroyed and nearly 12,000 homeless is the preliminary balance of a large fire that occurred in the Cox's Bazar Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, local media reported on Sunday.

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According to the Bangladesh office of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the fire originated in Camp 11 in Kutupalong, considered one of the largest refugee settlements in the world, although it could be controlled in a few hours without causing deathly victims.

According to the testimony of Mijanur Rahman, the refugee commissioner in the Asian country, the incident destroyed or damaged 2,000 shelters, 90 hospital and educational facilities and 35 mosques, leaving more than 12,000 Rohingya refugees helpless, losing all their belongings.

The authorities confessed that the fires are very frequent in the crowded refugee camps, made up of precarious constructions and basic living conditions, however they requested an investigation to find out the causes of the event that have not yet been determined.

UNHCR figures place the number of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh at more than one million, most of whom fled Myanmar due to the military repression unleashed in the Rakhine state in 2017. The humanitarian crisis for this ethnic group is far from resolved, especially after the coup in that country in 2021.

Attempts to return the refugees to their territories have been futile, which has been combined with the terrible living conditions in the camps, the legal limbo, the discontent of the native populations and the difficulties of the authorities of the Asian nation to keep attendance.

The UN rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, denounced the cuts in food rations by the World Food Program, affecting a third of the supplies destined for the Rohingyas, which he described as a "stain on the conscience of the international community".

"I have been able to speak with families who are desperate and for whom this situation is a matter of life or death," said the diplomat, who urged the countries of the international community to help beyond rhetoric, since financing is needed of 125 million dollars to reverse the situation.

Selim Ullah, a 40-year-old Rohingya refugee and father of six, said "everything was reduced to ashes." "I couldn't save anything. Many are homeless. I don't know what will happen to us. "When we were in Myanmar we faced many problems. Our houses were burned down. Now it has happened again," he lamented.