Authorities in Bangladesh on Tuesday searched for survivors amid the smoldering ruins of a sprawling Rohingya refugee camp, one day after a fire killed at least 15 people, injured hundreds and left tens of thousands homeless again.
The massacre at the camp in Cox’s Bazaar, near the border with Myanmar, was the latest tragedy for residents, who have been living in its bad stocking for years since fleeing their homes in Myanmar after a military massacre.
About 400 people are missing and many are thought to be dead, according to officials from the Inter Sector Coordination Group, an international aid organization that oversees the camp. Witnesses said some victims were caught between the fire and the barbed wire fences of the camp.
“Nobody helped us,” said Ro Arfat Khan, 21, who fled Myanmar with his family in 2017 after the army razed their town. “If the Bangladeshi government wanted to, they could stop the fire.”
Mr. Khan, who lost a member of his extended family in Monday’s fire, said the arsonist brought back painful memories when he saw his house in western Myanmar on fire.
His family then walked for days before arriving in Bangladesh, where they hid under a canvas. They had little in the camp. “Now,” he said, “it’s all gone.”
Satellite images released on Tuesday showed large parts of the black eclipsed earth in the Kutupalong Balukhali area, where the camps were. About 250 acres have been burned, a government official said.
The fire broke out in one of the shelters around 2pm on Monday, witnesses said. It quickly got out of control, fueled by strong winds and hundreds of cooking gas cylinders that exploded as the flames rushed across the camp.
Many of the murdered, including the 73-year-old father-in-law of Mr. Khan’s sister, could not overcome the firestorm. “He was too bad and could not walk,” he said. Khan said.
Shahriar Alam, Bangladesh’s junior foreign minister, said on Tuesday an eight-member committee would investigate the fire and deliver a report in the coming days.
But for many Rohingya, the fire is still a reminder of the failure of the international community to ensure their safety.
The Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority from the state of Rakhine in Myanmar, are one of the most persecuted people on earth. Since 2017, more than 730,000 Rohingya have moved to Bangladesh and fled for a brutal military campaign of murder, rape and arson in Myanmar of the Buddhist majority, which they saw as foreign interlocutors.
The United Nations has called Myanmar’s persecution of Rohingya Muslims “an example of ethnic cleansing”, accounting for the largest forced migration in history since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
“Everything we own is now ash,” said Ro Anamul Hasan, whose shelter was burnt down Monday. “This is the second time I’ve lost everything in my life.”
Some of the nearly 100,000 displaced people sought refuge in nearby camps. Others were seen trying to rebuild shelter amidst the ashes of their homes, using everything they could find – bamboo, pieces of plastic and polyethylene sheets.
Any slim hope of an eventual return to Myanmar was diminished in February, when the army overseeing the genocide campaign seized power in a coup.
“This tragedy is a horrific reminder of the vulnerable position of Rohingya refugees trapped between increasingly difficult circumstances in Bangladesh and the reality of a homeland now ruled by the army responsible for the genocide that forced them to to flee, “the humanitarian group Refugees International said in a statement.
For mr. Hasan’s fire was a cruel reminder of the ‘bad fate’ of the Rohingya he had experienced throughout his life.
“My accident follows me everywhere I go,” he said.
Julfikar Ali Manik reported.