COX BAZAR: Fifteen people have so far been confirmed dead and 400 are still missing in the huge blaze at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, the United Nations said Tuesday.
“What we have seen in this fire is something we have never seen before in these camps. It is massive. It is devastating,” Johannes van der Klaauw, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative in Bangladesh, told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Dhaka.
“We have so far confirmed 15 people dead, 560 injured, 400 are still missing and at least 10,000 shelters have been destroyed. That means at least 45,000 people are being displaced and for whom we now seek provisional shelter.”
The fire broke out Monday and left at least 50,000 people homeless as it ripped through their flimsy bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters, according to police and aid groups. Terrified families fled with whatever they could carry.
It was just the latest blaze in recent weeks — and the biggest since 2017. Bangladesh has ordered a probe.
“People ran for their lives as it spread fast. Many were injured and I saw at least four bodies,” said Aminul Haq, a refugee.
Disaster management and relief official Mohsin Chowdhury put the death toll at seven.
Officials said the blaze appeared to have started in one of the 34 camps — which span about 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares) of land — before spreading rapidly to three other sites despite desperate efforts to put out the flames.
Thick columns of smoke could be seen billowing from blazing shanties in video shared on social media, as hundreds of firefighters and aid workers pulled refugees to safety.
Firefighters finally brought the blaze under control around midnight.
Police inspector Gazi Salahuddin said the fire grew after gas cylinders used for cooking exploded.
Mohammad Yasin, a Rohingya helping with the firefight, told AFP the blaze raged for more than 10 hours and was the worst he had seen.
A volunteer for Save the Children, Tayeba Begum, said “children were running, crying for their families”.
—Agencies

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