UPDATE - 7,000 Rohingya left homeless as fire catches Bangladeshi refugee camp

UPDATES WITH UN REFUGEE AGENCY STATEMENT; CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE, BODY

SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Nearly 7,000 Rohingya refugees have become homeless as a fire blazed through a camp in Cox’s Bazar early Sunday, home to about 1.2 million refugees.

The UN Refugee Agency said in a statement on Sunday that nearly 800 shelters are feared to have been destroyed in the fire.

Additionally, some 93 shelters were partially damaged, and around 120 facilities, including learning and health care centers and mosques, were also destroyed or damaged by the inferno, it added.

After four hours of frantic efforts, eight firefighter units managed to douse the fire. No casualties were reported, Atish Chakma, the Cox’s Bazar fire service deputy assistant director, told Anadolu.

Refugees, however, said that more houses were gutted in the fire.

“Five to six thousand refugees were made homeless by the fire. We initially got reports that over 1,200 tents were burned down and damaged,” Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, a Rohingya whose relatives lost everything in the fire, told Anadolu.

He put the blame on sabotage for the incident, accusing some Myanmar insurgent groups of trying to establish supremacy in the camps.

The Rohingya in camps are refugees from ethnic persecution in neighboring Myanmar.

Samsud Doza, deputy commissioner of the Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner, told Anadolu that they were on the site to examine the situation, working to accommodate the refugees and ensure food and warm clothing.

The majority of Rohingya living in Bangladesh fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine, Myanmar in 2017. Most are housed in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, but since late 2020 over 33,000 have been relocated to the island of Bhasan Char.