This Week in Human Rights News

Massive fire at Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar

Source: Al Jazeera, Reuters, Arab News, ReliefWeb

• On Monday, a massive fire swept through the Balukhali Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. 

• The latest UNHCR reports say that at least 15 people have lost their lives, approximately 400 are still missing, and nearly 45,000 are now displaced. 

• The 12-hour fire appears to have destroyed over 10,000 refugee huts made of bamboo and tarpaulin and was the deadliest since the 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that resulted in over 740,000 Rohingya fleeing the country.

• The rescue efforts were apparently slowed down by barbed-wire fences installed by the military, and also resulted in many people being trapped in the camp, according to aid groups.

• Several international humanitarian organizations are calling for the removal of the barbed wire fences.

• Bangladesh government officials say that the fences acted as an ‘outer boundary’ to ensure the safety and security of the Rohingya people and did nor prevent them from escaping. They also reject the claim that some 400 people are still missing.

• An investigation into the cause of the fire is still ongoing, but initial reports suggest a fire from a stove in the shelter quickly spread due to wind and cooking gas cylinders.

• Aid workers on the ground are continuing to attempt to reunite families separated by the fire, with an unknown number of children separated from their families.

• This isn’t the first time a fire has destroyed Rohingya camps, for instance in January 2021, a fire spread through the Nayapara camp in Cox’s Bazar, resulting in the total or partial destruction of more than 550 homes sheltering approximately 3,500 people.

• Bangladesh has been trying to move 100,000 Rohingya to the remote Bay of Bengal island due to overcrowding in the camps, and despite reluctance of some Rohingya to move, over 13,000 have already been moved since December.