Fire blazes in 5 Rohingya camps for 7 hrs in Cox’s Bazar

It was three o’clock on Monday. The Rohingya camps were located in Balukhali of Ukhiya, 55 kilometers from Cox Bazar city. One of the houses in a camp suddenly caught fire and the fire soon engulfed the adjacent ones. Locals, various security agency personnel and fighter fighters together brought the flames under control at around 9:40pm.

The fire lasted for nearly seven hours, reducing at least 10,000 shelters to ashes in Camp No. 8-W, 8-H, Camp no. 9 and 10 in Balukhali, killing at least 11 and displacing 50,000 others. At least 400 others are still missing.

More than 24 hours have been passed, but the cause of the fire is still unknown. The refugees suspect Rohingya terrorists set the camps to fire as part of their plot to disrupt the Rohingya relocation to Bhashan Char and other issues.

Nearly 800,000 Rohingyas fled the persecution of Myanmar military in the Rakhine state after 25 August 2017 taking refugee to Bangladesh. Before that, several hundreds of thousands Rohingyas had already taken shelter there. At present, 1.15 million registered Rohingyas live in 34 refugee camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf including that of 900,000 in 23 refugee camps in Ukhiya.

Deputy inspector general (DIG) of Airport Armed Police Battalion (APBn) Md Azad Mia told Prothom Alo on Tuesday that bodies of 11 people including children have been recovered from the ashes of the camps. However, the central coordination body for humanitarian agencies serving Rohingya refugees Inter-Sector Coordination Group (ISCG) said at least 15 people died from fire. They said, 450 were injured and 45,000 were displaced. At least 400 Rohingya remain missing, he added.

The UNHCR representative in Bangladesh, Johannes van der Klaauw, in a statement, as of this Tuesday morning, 15 refugees are confirmed to have lost their lives in the fire. More than 560 have been injured. At least 10,000 shelters are been estimated to have been destroyed or damaged. Some 45,000 Rohingya refugees lost their shelters and belongings in the devastating blaze, he added.

Police have identified nine of the deceased. They are Salim Ullah, 55, Rafiq Alam, 25, Abdullah, 8, Asmaul, 7, Mizanur Rahman, 4, Bashir Ahmed, 65, Khatija Begum, 60, Md Ekram, 3, and Emdad Ullah, 24.

Though more than 24 hours have been passed, but fire services and other agencies concerned couldn’t identify the cause of the fire.

An eight-member committee headed by the refugee, relief and repatriation commissioner, Shah Rezwan Hayat, has been formed to investigate the cause of the fire. Cox Bazar’s additional district magistrate Md Amin Al Parvej told Prothom Alo that the officials from various agencies including’s APBn commander, deputy commissioner, superintendent of police are members of the committee. The probe will start on Wednesday, he added.

The DIG of Chattogram range, Md Anwar Hossain, visited the charred camps in Balukhali around 11:00am on Tuesday. He told newspersons, a probe is on to find out the cause of the fire.

Many displaced Rohingyas said Rohingyas terrorists have set fire to the camps deliberately in order to create instability in the camps in addition to disrupting Rohingya repatriation process and Rohingya relocation to Noakhli’s Bhashan Char.

A refugee, Khalil Ahmed, believes so. On Monday, he was seen waiting with his wife and six children on the road for a bus to go to Cox’s Bazar from Ukhiya. “Several Rohingyas started the fire deliberately. It seems that staying at the camp is no longer safe,” Khalil Ahmed said.

Anwara Begum is in her mid-twenties. Her husband died of illness two month ago. She lived at the shelter 17 in Balukhali’s block C. After fire broke out, she left the house with her two children. She was carrying her 4-month-old baby, but her 2-year-old daughter got lost in the crowd.

We met her in front of her charred house. She lost her husband some days ago. Now one of her children is missing. She stayed under the open sky last night (Monday).

Like Anwara, other displaced Rohingyas are suffering out in the open. Some took shelter on Cox’s Bazar-Teknaf road and nearby hills and forests. The food and water crisis is mounting. Many Rohingyas are leaving for Cox’s Bazar.

Fifty-five-year-old Jamal Uddin said he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his three sons since they got separated while escaping the fire.

Rahim Uddin also lost her 8-year-old daughter. He was seen wailing besides the charred remains of the house with his wife and 12-year-old child. Rahim Uddin said they took shelter there leaving everything behind in the wake of military crackdown in Rakhain and now the fire took everything.

Regarding the rehabilitation of displaced Rohingyas, additional RRRC Mohammad Shamsud Douza said they are providing the Rohingyas with material including tarpaulin to set up houses. The Rohingyas have already started building their makeshift houses. Permanent shelters will be constructed later. Besides, cooked food is being served to the Rohingyas, he added.

On Tuesday, 11-year-old Nur Nabi was seen crying at the Transit Centre, near the Ukhiya television sub-centre on Ukhiya-Teknaf road. He lost his relatives during the fire on Monday evening. Like Nur Nabi, at least 50 children took shelter in the Transit Centre. Volunteers of International Organization for Migration (IOM) were making PA announcement to find the guardians of the children. Some guardians also came to take their children to the camp.

Sources concerned said the density of habitation caused the fire to spread quickly. Besides, barbed-wire fence surrounding the camps disrupted the firefighting operation, resulting in much damage.

The team leader of Ukhyia fire services, Imdadul Haque, said Rohingyas’ homes closely adjoined each other. If one shelter caught fire, it was difficult to save the other homes. Besides, these shelters have been built on the hill slope making it difficult for firefighting vehicles to reach the spot.

Fire service officials said because of these factors, four firefighting units took several hours to douse the flames at the Rohingya camps.

The fire burnt Bolibazar of Balukhali to ashes. Forty-seven-year-old Samila Khatun was seen searching in the charred clothes at a corner. When asked what she was searching for, she burst into tears. She said she couldn’t save anything except six bhoris of gold while fleeing Myanmar three years ago. She buried the gold at a corner of her shelter fearing it might be stolen. But now she can’t locate her house as fire burnt everything.

Like Salima Khatun, many other Rohingyas were seen searching in the remains of charred houses.

Visiting the spots, it was found the Rohingya camps turned into pile of rubble. Trees were also burnt. Clothes and other belongings were seen strewn all over the place.

Diplomatic sources said the UN Refugee Agency appealed to the development partner countries for emergency financial assistance. According to the United Nations sources at Cox’s Bazar, no such fire incident happened in the past on such a scale as the latest one.

This report appeared in the print edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Hasanul Banna