Bangladesh investigates fire outbreak in world’s largest refugee camp
Authorities in Bangladesh have launched an investigation into the cause of a massive fire in a Rohingya refugee camp which has left 12,000 people without shelter.
The camp in the south-east is believed to be the world’s largest refugee camp.
Officials say the blaze razed 2,000 shelters after spreading quickly through gas cylinders in kitchens but no casualties have been reported.
Police are investigating if the fire was an act of sabotage. One man has been detained, local media reported.
An official said the blaze started at about 14:45 local time Sunday (08: 45 GMT) and quickly tore through the bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters.
“Some 2,000 shelters have been burnt, leaving about 12,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals shelterless,” Mijanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, told AFP news agency.
The blaze was brought under control within three hours but at least 35 mosques and 21 learning centres for the refugees were also destroyed, he added.
The refugee camp houses people who fled from Myanmar following a military crackdown against the Rohingya ethnic minority.
On Monday, hundreds had returned to the area, known as Cox’s Bazar, to see what they could salvage from the ruins.
The camps, overcrowded and squalid, are vulnerable to fires.
Also Read: Bangladesh to relocate more Rohingya refugees to remote Island
The Rohingya are Muslims in largely Buddhist Myanmar, where they have faced persecution for generations.
The latest exodus of Rohingya escaping to Bangladesh began in August 2017, after Myanmar’s military brutally retaliated when a Rohingya insurgent group launched attacks on several police posts.
Between January 2021 and December 2022, there were 222 fire incidents in the Rohingya camps including 60 cases of arson, according to a Bangladesh defence ministry report released last month.
In March 2021, at least 15 people were killed and some 50,000 were displaced after a huge fire tore through a camp in the settlement.
Zainab Sa’id
