Bangladesh (GNB): Fifteen people have so far been confirmed dead and 400 are still missing in the huge blaze at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, the United Nations said.
“What we have seen in this fire is something we have never seen before in these camps. It is massive. It is devastating,” Johannes van der Klaauw, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative in Bangladesh, told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Dhaka.
“We have so far confirmed 15 people dead, 560 injured, 400 are still missing and at least 10,000 shelters have been destroyed. That means at least 45,000 people are being displaced and for whom we now seek provisional shelter.”
Bangladeshi authorities have begun investigating the cause of the fire, as officials have sifted through the debris looking for more victims.
The fire ripped through the Balukhali camp near the southeastern town of Cox’s Bazar late on Monday, burning through thousands of hutments as people scrambled to save their meagre possessions.
The fire broke out Monday and left at least 50,000 people homeless as it ripped through their flimsy bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters, according to police and aid groups. Terrified families fled with whatever they could carry, with distraught children separated from their children in the rush.
“Fire Incident finally coming under control in the camps after destroying a large area of shelters and facilities. Reports of casualties are being verified. Here is a video clip of our response at the ground”, Bangladesh Red Crescent Society (BDRCS) said via twitter.
Sanjeev Kafley, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’s delegation head in Bangladesh, said to the media that more than 17,000 shelters had been destroyed in the blaze, and tens of thousands had been displaced.
The fire spread over four sections of the camp containing roughly 124,000 people, around one-tenth of the more than 1 million Rohingya refugees in the area, he added.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, authorities are investigating to determine the cause of the fire.
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