Firefighters, the Bangladesh Refugee Aid and Repatriation Commissioner and rescue and response teams remained at the scene on Monday night, where they continued to try to control the fire and prevent it from spreading, UNHCR said late Monday afternoon. local hour.
“I am deeply concerned about the impact of a terrible fire today in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,” Vitorino said, adding that “IOM teams and partners are working together to respond to the crisis and ensure the safety and well-being of all.”
Witness images showed a massive fire consuming huts and dozens of refugees fleeing on foot. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
“The fire spread so quickly that before we understood what had happened, it caught our house,” said Tayeba Begum, a Save the Children volunteer who witnessed the fire. “People were screaming and running here and there. The children were also running scattered, crying for their family. It’s the worst incident I’ve seen recently.”
“It is another devastating blow to Rohingya refugees living here. Just a few days ago we lost one of our health facilities in another fire. The fire risks in these extremely densely populated and restricted areas are enormous,” he said. said Van Manen.
Estimates of the number of Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazaar range from 800,000 to over 900,000, according to UNHCR and Save the Children.
In 2016 and 2017, the Myanmar army launched a brutal killing and arson campaign that forced more than 740,000 Rohingya minorities to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, prompting a genocide case to be heard at the International Court of Justice. In 2019, the United Nations said that “serious human rights violations” by the military continue in the ethnic states of Rakhine, Chin, Shan, Kachin and Karen.
Myanmar denies the allegations of genocide and claims that the “elimination operations” by the military were legitimate measures to combat terrorism.