DHAKA: Landslides triggered by monsoon rains killed at least 11 people Tuesday in Bangladesh near camps housing one million Rohingya refugees, officials said.
Aid agencies have been warning of the potential for a humanitarian catastrophe over the coming months as heavy rains lash an area home to the world’s largest refugee camp.
Most of Tuesday’s victims were buried under mud when surrounding hills gave way after a deluge.
“Ten people... died in Naniarchar” including a family of four, while several people remained missing, district administrator Mamunur Rashid told AFP.
Another person was killed in neighboring Cox’s Bazar district, police said.
Landslides have so far killed at least 12 people this week, after a Rohingya boy was crushed to death by a collapsing mud wall at the Kutupalong refugee camp on Monday.
Some 200,000 Rohingya who live on hills around the refugee camps are at risk of death or injury from monsoon rains, officials and relief agencies have said.
Many of the hills around the settlements have been cleared of trees to build shelters, making the land highly unstable.
Nearly 29,000 people have been moved to new locations ahead of the monsoon but the risk of a tragedy remains high.
“Relocation is continuing. But the problem is where (to) find land to move people. We continue to try to find places where we can move families to safer areas,” UN refugee agency spokesperson Caroline Gluck told AFP.
At least 300 Rohingya homes were damaged by rains that began late Saturday, Bangladesh officials said.
The region is forecast to receive 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) of rainfall during the monsoon season — roughly triple what Britain gets in a year.
Last year, monsoon rains triggered landslides in Cox’s Bazar and the nearby Chittagong hill tracts, killing at least 170 people.
There are also fears flooding could spread disease in the refugee camps.
About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled neighboring Myanmar since last August after an army crackdown which the UN says amounted to “ethnic cleansing.”
They join around 300,000 refugees from earlier violence in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, where the Rohingya are a persecuted and stateless minority.
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Landslides kill 11 as monsoon batters Rohingya refugees
Landslides kill 11 as monsoon batters Rohingya refugees
At least 170 civilians killed in Myanmar air strikes during election: UN
- At least 170 civilians were killed in more than 400 military air strikes conducted in Myanmar during nearly two months surrounding its widely-criticized elections, the United Nations said Friday
GENEVA: At least 170 civilians were killed in more than 400 military air strikes conducted in Myanmar during nearly two months surrounding its widely-criticized elections, the United Nations said Friday.
The UN rights office said “credible sources” had verified that at least “170 civilians were killed in some 408 military aerial attacks reported by open sources during the voting period — between December 2025 and January 2026.”
James Rodehaver, head of the rights office’s Myanmar team, warned that the actual numbers might be higher.
Speaking from Bangkok, he told reporters in Geneva that the verification covered a period from December to late last week, from the beginning of the election campaign and up until the three phases of voting were nearly complete.
But he warned that “because of the way in which communications are cut off and because of, frankly, the fear of individuals in some of these locations to speak to us, it sometimes takes a lot longer to get that information.”
His comments came amid global outrage over Myanmar’s month-long vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule, five years after a coup that ousted popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi.
UN rights chief Volker Turk warned in a statement Friday that “the profound and widespread despair inflicted on the people of Myanmar” since the 2021 coup “has only deepened with the recent election staged by the military.”
He pointed out that “many people chose either to vote or not to vote purely out of fear, flatly at odds with their internationally guaranteed civil and political rights — and with ripple effects on their enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.”
“The conflict and insecurity continued unabated in large parts of the country. Opposition candidates and some ethnic groups were excluded,” he said.
His office pointed out that the elections were held in only 263 of 330 townships, and often exclusively in urban centers under military control, and limited in conflict areas.
“As a result, large segments of the population, especially the displaced and minorities, such as the ethnic Rohingya, were excluded,” it pointed out.
Turk decried that five years of military rule in Myanmar had been “characterised by repression of political dissent, mass arbitrary arrests, arbitrary conscription, widespread surveillance and limitation of civic space.”
“Now, the military is seeking to entrench its rule-by-violence after forcing people to the ballot box,” he said.
“This couldn’t be further from civilian rule.”
The UN rights office said “credible sources” had verified that at least “170 civilians were killed in some 408 military aerial attacks reported by open sources during the voting period — between December 2025 and January 2026.”
James Rodehaver, head of the rights office’s Myanmar team, warned that the actual numbers might be higher.
Speaking from Bangkok, he told reporters in Geneva that the verification covered a period from December to late last week, from the beginning of the election campaign and up until the three phases of voting were nearly complete.
But he warned that “because of the way in which communications are cut off and because of, frankly, the fear of individuals in some of these locations to speak to us, it sometimes takes a lot longer to get that information.”
His comments came amid global outrage over Myanmar’s month-long vote that democracy watchdogs dismissed as a rebranding of army rule, five years after a coup that ousted popular democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi.
UN rights chief Volker Turk warned in a statement Friday that “the profound and widespread despair inflicted on the people of Myanmar” since the 2021 coup “has only deepened with the recent election staged by the military.”
He pointed out that “many people chose either to vote or not to vote purely out of fear, flatly at odds with their internationally guaranteed civil and political rights — and with ripple effects on their enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.”
“The conflict and insecurity continued unabated in large parts of the country. Opposition candidates and some ethnic groups were excluded,” he said.
His office pointed out that the elections were held in only 263 of 330 townships, and often exclusively in urban centers under military control, and limited in conflict areas.
“As a result, large segments of the population, especially the displaced and minorities, such as the ethnic Rohingya, were excluded,” it pointed out.
Turk decried that five years of military rule in Myanmar had been “characterised by repression of political dissent, mass arbitrary arrests, arbitrary conscription, widespread surveillance and limitation of civic space.”
“Now, the military is seeking to entrench its rule-by-violence after forcing people to the ballot box,” he said.
“This couldn’t be further from civilian rule.”
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