COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire gutted parts of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police said on Sunday.
About 850,000 of the persecuted Muslim minority — many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent” — live in a network of camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar.
“About 1,200 houses were burnt in the fire,” said Kamran Hossain, a spokesman for the Armed Police Battalion, which heads security in the camp.
The fire started at Camp 16 and raced through shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin, leaving more than 5,000 people homeless, he said.
“The fire started at 4:40 p.m. (1040 GMT) and was brought under control at around 6:30 pm,” he told AFP.
Abdur Rashid, 22, said the fire was so big that he ran for safety as his house and furniture were engulfed by the blaze.
“Everything in my house was burnt. My baby and wife were out. There were a lot of things in the house,” he said.
“I saved 30,000 taka (350 dollars) from working as a day laborer The money was burnt in the fire.
“I am now under open sky. I lost my dream.”
In March last year, 15 people died and about 50,000 were left homeless in Bangladesh after a huge fire destroyed Rohingya homes in the world’s biggest refugee settlement.
Mohammad Yasin, 29, bemoaned the lack of fire safety equipment in the camps.
“Fire occurs here frequently. There was no way we could put out the fire. There was no water. My home is burnt. Many documents, which I brought from Myanmar, are also burnt. And it is cold here,” he said.
Bangladesh has been praised for taking in refugees who poured across the border from Myanmar, but has had little success finding them permanent homes.
Fire at Bangladesh Rohingya camp leaves thousands homeless
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Fire at Bangladesh Rohingya camp leaves thousands homeless
- In March last year, 15 people died and about 50,000 were left homeless in Bangladesh after a huge fire destroyed Rohingya homes in the world’s biggest refugee settlement
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
