The fire took her home, now its charred remains are her only source of income

The Kalshi slum beside the Baunia embankment in Mirpur-11 still bears the scars of the devastating fire that swept through the settlement on 25 May, just days before Eid. Hundreds of homes were reduced to ashes. Among them was the home of Anowara Begum as well.

 On Saturday afternoon (6 June), under the scorching sun, Anwara Begum was seen searching through the charred remains of the slum alongside two children. However, she was not looking for any jewelry or heirlooms. She was collecting charcoal.

One of the children is her granddaughter Lamia, while the other is her grandson Ibrahim. Lamia is the daughter of her son and Ibrahim is the son of her daughter, Tania Akter. Tania lives with her mother in the slum. Their village home was in Karimganj upazila of Kishoreganj. Both Anwara and her daughter had been abandoned by their husbands, so the responsibility of supporting the family now rests entirely on the shoulders of the mother and daughter.

 Anwara makes a living by collecting scrap metal, polythene and plastic from different areas of Mirpur and selling them to scrap dealers. That income barely supports the four-member family. However, the Kalshi slum fire took away even their meagre possessions. Their home was burned down. They have now built a temporary shelter on one side of the slum using a tarpaulin received as relief assistance.

Anwara said that the spot where she was digging for charcoal was where their house once stood. She is now gathering charcoal from the burnt wooden remains of that house to sell. The charcoal recovered from the ruins has become their source of income. She said poverty and hardship had always been part of their lives, but the fire had left them completely destitute.

 “We are surviving on dal, bhat, alu bhorta (rice, lentils and mashed potatoes),” she said.

 Eid did not bring any festive joy to their lives this year. The holiday passed amid the grief of losing their home and uncertainty about the future.

 “I didn’t even go looking for meat during Eid. If I had, maybe I could have got some. But with our house burned down, where could I leave all this and go?” Anwara said.

 Like Anwara Begum, Nasir Mia was also seen collecting charcoal from the burned ruins of Kalshi slum.

 One of his arms is paralysed, leaving his right hand almost unusable. For years, he supported his family by repairing gas stoves using only his left hand. His wife works as a midwife.

 After years of savings and taking out loans several times, the couple had built a seven-room house in the slum. They lived in two rooms and rented out the remaining five for between Tk1,500 and Tk2,000 per month. But the fire on the evening of 25 May destroyed all seven rooms, including the one they lived in.

Like their tenants, they are now homeless.

 They are currently living under a relief tarpaulin set up beside the road, with a single cot underneath serving as their temporary shelter.

 Speaking about the damage caused by the fire, Nasir said this was not the first such tragedy in his life. A devastating fire had also swept through Kalshi slum on 27 December 2019, reducing his home to ashes. He rebuilt the rooms by taking loans, only to lose them again in this latest blaze.

 Looking at the pieces of charcoal in his hand, Nasir said, “People are giving us aid and we are surviving on that. I still haven’t been able to light my own stove.”

Nazma Begum is also among those who lost everything in the Kalshi slum fire. She had a home in the slum and a small roadside shop.

 “There was a fridge in the shop, along with tea, betel leaves, cigarettes and bottled water. There were goods worth more than Tk50,000. The fire turned the entire shop into ashes,” she said.

 Nazma said this year’s Eid would remain a painful memory.

 “Eid passed in great sorrow. Everything burned down. There was no happiness at all. I escaped with only the clothes I was wearing. Last year we had a home, everything we had was our own. It was a joyful Eid. This time, the fire turned all the joy of Eid into dust,” she said.