ISLAMABAD, Mar 07 (Alliance News): More than 2,000 Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh have been gutted by fire and nearly 12,000 people have been displaced.
According to foreign media , Mizanur Rehman, the Commissioner of Refugees in Bangladesh, said that the fire broke out in Camp No. 11 of Katupalong, one of the largest refugee settlements in the world, at around 2:45 PM local time. quickly engulfed the camps.
He said that about 2 thousand camps have been burnt to ashes due to which about 12 thousand refugees have become homeless.
He further said that at least 35 mosques and 21 educational centers set up for the refugees have also been destroyed by fire, but no one has been reported injured or killed.
Earlier, UNHCR in Bangladesh said in a tweet that efforts are being made to control the fire with the support of the Rohingya refugee agency and its partners.
Cox’s Bazar Additional Superintendent of Police Rafiqul Islam said, “We cannot estimate the damage at present, but there are no reports of casualties.”
He added that the fire has been brought under control and senior officials from police, refugee relief department and fire department are on the spot.
It is not yet clear how the fire started but authorities have ordered an investigation, local police official Farooq Ahmad said the cause of the fire is not clear.
Fires are common in refugee camps in Bangladesh, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live in squalid conditions, most of them fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017. Lee.
According to a report released last month by the Ministry of Defense of Bangladesh, there have been 222 fires in Rohingya camps between January 2021 and December 2022. 50 thousand were displaced.