Fire destroys 29 houses at Ukhiya Rohingya camp

As many as 29 makeshift houses were gutted in a fire at a Rohingya camp in Ukhiya upazila of Cox's Bazar district in the early hours of Tuesday, reports UNB.

No casualties were reported till the filling of this report around 11:30am.

Commanding officer of the Armed Police Battalion-14, Md Naimul Haque said the fire broke out at a house in block-B of camp-5 around 2:00am and soon engulfed a number of adjoining houses.

Two fire tenders took nearly three hours to douse the flames around 5:00am, he said, adding that only a probe would help ascertain the exact cause of the fire.

Additional police force have been deployed in the camp to avert any untoward incident.

Fires in Rohingya camps are not uncommon in the district. On 9 January, as many as 600 makeshift houses were gutted in a fire that broke out at Rohingya camp-16 in the Palangkhali Shafuillakata area of Ukhiya.

Another massive fire broke out at a Covid isolation centre in extension-20 of Ukhiya Rohingya camp on 2 January. Fortunately, no casualties were reported in that fire but some 70 hospital beds were charred.

On 22 March last year, as many as 15 people were killed and more than 200,000 Rohingya refugees incurred damages as a massive fire broke out at three Rohingya camps in Ukhiya, destroying 10,000 houses.