A massive fire devastated a third of the family settlements of one of the Rohingya camps in Bangladesh on Sunday, leaving 12,000 members of this community displaced just as humanitarian aid cuts complicate the lives of refugees from neighboring Burma.
“The flames burned for about three hours at Camp 11which is administered by IOM, until firefighting-trained Rohingya Refugee Security Unit Volunteers, firefighters and local authorities managed to contain the fire,” the UN refugee agency said in a statement. , UNHCR.
This is one of the Kutupalong Balukhali camps, run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in the Cox’s Bazar district of southern Bangladesh.
“We visited the camp today and took the testimony of the witnesses. We have to find the origin of the fire,” he told the news agency. EFE District Judge Abu Sufian, in charge of the investigation.
Among those questioned is a young Rohingya who was detained by police on suspicion of being responsible for the fire, Sufian added, with the aim of checking whether there was any attempt at sabotage in the massive fire, which occurs when power cuts humanitarian aid complicate helping refugees.
According to UNHCR, 16 firefighting units were deployed from all camps helping to put out the flames in the affected areas.
The person in charge of the local fire station, Emdadul Haque, explained to EFE that the fire started during the early hours of the afternoon and was brought under control some three and a half hours later.
No one was injured or killed in the fire, but many shelters were destroyed.indicated.
According to the UN refugee agency, some 12,000 displaced refugees, more than a third of the 32,200 inhabitants in Camp 11, more than 2,000 shelters destroyed, and more than 90 facilities damaged, including hospitals and learning centers. .
The overcrowded Rohingya refugee camps are highly vulnerable to fires due to poor facilities, their overcrowding, and the fragile wooden, bamboo, and plastic huts that make up the majority in the area.
The situation of refugees from Bangladesh is becoming more complex. The UN has made numerous appeals to donors due to the shortage of funds that forced a cut in food aid in the camps.
Some 738,000 Rohingyaa Burmese minority of Bengali ethnicity and Muslim religion, arrived in the camps in southeastern Bangladesh after the outbreak in August 2017 of a campaign of persecution and violence by the army of neighboring Burma, which the UN described as an example of ethnic cleansing with overtones of genocide.
(With information from EFE)
Keep reading:
Myanmar granted amnesty to two Reuters reporters convicted after investigating Rohingya massacre
Two Reuters journalists who investigated a Rohingya massacre in Myanmar were sentenced to seven years in jail
Myanmar rejected the UN report on its army’s “crimes” against the Rohingya
The UN calls for the head of the Myanmar Armed Forces to be tried for “genocide”
Source-www.infobae.com