Fifteen people, including children, were killed and 560 were injured as a massive fire tore through the Kutupalong Balukali refugee camp in Bangladesh on 22 March, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reported. The toll may yet rise as up to another 400 people have been reported missing.
At least 10,000 shelters were estimated to have been destroyed, forcing about 48,000 refugees to be housed elsewhere within the camp. The fire also burnt to the ground over 1,600 infrastructure facilities including hospitals, learning centers, aid distribution points, and a registration center, the UNCHR disclosed.
“The worst affected areas have been reduced to ash—the only things left standing are shelter foundations and bits of household metal like pots and sewing machines. The level of destruction is unlike anything our team has seen before,” said Enamul Hoque, lead of the Bangladeshi Rapid Response Team of Oxfam, an international aid organization that works to eradicate poverty.
Although Bangladeshi officials have begun an investigation, the cause of the blaze has not yet been determined.
Meanwhile, UNCHR, together with other aid organizations, has provided urgent aid in the form of blankets, kitchen kits, water tanks, purification amenities, medical supplies, and mobile medical teams. On the day after the fire, 23 of March, 62,000 warm lunches and dinners were provided to families.
UNCHR spokesperson, Andrej Mahecic, thanked the several hundred volunteers who had stepped in to help those affected. “They have been critical to the humanitarian response in Cox’s Bazar camp,” he emphasized.
Mahecic also stressed that additional support was of the utmost importance as the UNCHR could only cover 20% of the US$5.9 million needed to restore the refugee camp.
“UNCHR is asking the government and private sector donors to keep their contributions flexible, thus allowing their use across the overall operation,” the spokesperson said. Shortly afterwards, the European Commission announced a donation of €500,000 in emergency funding to respond to the consequences of the fire.
The Rohingya are an ethnic minority of Muslim faith, most of whom fled the dominantly Buddhist Myanmar in 2017 to escape a military crackdown against them. Back then, entire villages were burned to the ground, with their inhabitants being subject to unspeakable atrocities. About 1 million Rohingya refugees are said to be sheltered in several Bangladeshi refugee camps, with Kutupalong Balukhali being the largest one.
