Anadolu Agency/Yenisafak – March 6, 2023
Fire at Cox's Bazar leaves 12,000 Rohingya refugees homeless
A large fire that swept through a camp in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar has impacted around 12,000 Rohingya refugees, causing considerable damage at the world's largest refugee camp, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Monday.
Around 2,000 shelters were destroyed in Sunday's fire while many affected refugees lost all their belongings leaving many experiencing fear, despair, and hopelessness, the IOM said.
"We are coordinating with other humanitarian actors to ensure that those affected are provided with immediate needs, including food; health; protection; water, sanitation, and hygiene needs," said Fathima Nusrath Ghazzali, who heads the IOM in Bangladesh.
"Following the fire incident, refugees from these camps are looking to recover from the loss, damage, and shock; we will support them with assistance for shelter repair/rebuilding and access to cooking facilities."
More than 1.2 million forcibly displaced Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have been housed in 33 congested refugee camps in Cox's Bazar.
Most fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine State in the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation.
The fire was first reported on Sunday afternoon, and IOM mobilized response teams to assist the refugees and coordinate with local authorities and the fire brigade.
Volunteers created fire breaks to prevent the fire from spreading and mitigate the loss of life and property.
The cause and origin of the fire are unknown at this stage, said IOM, and no fatalities were initially reported.
Immediately after the incident, IOM said it sent two mobile medical teams with 14 ambulances to assist those in need.
The conditions in the camps make large fires a real risk, said the IOM.
In March 2021, a massive fire that broke out in the camp resulted in the loss of lives, displaced 45,000 Rohingya refugees, and caused significant damage to the refugee camp.
The plight of Rohingya refugees
Rohingya refugees have found little reprieve as they marked the fifth anniversary on August 25, 2022 of what advocates call Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day. Five years ago on this day, a violent campaign by security forces in Myanmar sparked a mass exodus of about 730,000 Rohingya. Most headed to neighboring Bangladesh.
The violence brought renewed international attention to decades of documented persecution against the Rohingya Muslims, who are largely stateless after years of what rights monitors have called systematic marginalization by Myanmar’s government.
A United Nations report found that attacks on Rohingya were carried out with “genocidal intent”, and in March, the United States became the first government to formally declare that the attacks constituted genocide. Myanmar has denied that any violence committed by security forces amounted to genocide.
If Rohingya return to Myanmar, “there is no guarantee that the cycle of violence will not repeat again,” Nay San Lwin, the co-founder of the Free Rohingya Coalition, told Al Jazeera.
‘Feeling like prisoners’: The plight of Rohingya refugees today
The Rohingya Crisis by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
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