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BSS-51
ROHINGYA-FIRE
Huge fire devastates Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar
DHAKA, Jan 14, 2021 (BSS) – A huge fire overnight swept through a crammed Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar destroying at least 500 ramshackle shelters leaving hundreds of people without homes, officials and aid workers said today.
They said the fire erupted in predawn hours today at Rohingyas makeshift Nayapara camp but reported no casualty while fire officials said it took them some two hours to extinguish the blaze.
“The blaze burnt into ashes at least 500 structures . . . we have launched an investigation to ascertain what caused the fire alongside assessing the extent of damage and losses,” Bangladesh government’s relief commissioner Shamsuddoza Nayan told newsmen at the scene.
Fortunately, he said, the blaze claimed no life or left none severely wounded and the affected people were shifted to another place and provided with food and necessary items.
Witnesses and camp residents said flames quickly spread from one edge and enveloped the entire camp prompting people in the adjacent camps as well to flee their shanties amid the chaos.
Over a million Rohingyas fled their homeland in Myanmar to Bangladesh since a military clampdown began there to oust the a predominantly Muslim ethnic group from their homeland at Rakhine state which is described as a campaign of killing, rape and arson.
The United Nations called it an textbook example of ethnic cleansing while rights group called the campaign genocide.
Bangladesh opened its border for the fleeting Rohingyas on humanitarian ground and since then Cox’s Bazar that borders Rakhine state turned into a makeshift home for hundreds of the refugees.
The military and mobs of Buddhists, who make up the majority in Myanmar have continued to persecute the Rohingyas.
A nearly identical blaze in May last year reduced to ashes over 400 shelter homes in the nearby Kutupalang Rohingya camp while officials said the crammed camps in hillocks with exposed the Rohingyas to enhanced risk of fire and landslides.
BSS/Corr-SAH/AR/2203 HRS