The Rohingya Refugee Camp In Bangladesh Is Destroyed By Fire, Displacing Thousands Of People

According to the local superintendent of police, Mohammad Mahfuzul Islam, a major fire tore through a Rohingya refugee camp in the southern Bangladeshi district of Cox's Bazar on Sunday, leaving some 12,000 people homeless. The fire, which swept through the Kutupalong refugee camp in the late afternoon, destroyed almost 2,000 huts before it was put out, according to Islam. He said that no injuries have been recorded thus far and that an investigation is ongoing even though the cause of the fire has not yet been identified. He stated that authorities are collaborating with national and local humanitarian organisations to give individuals who have lost their houses food and makeshift shelters. "We'll make sure nobody snoozes outside. Everyone will receive a temporary home "According to Islam, people harmed by the fire were given accommodation at mosques and community centres. The Bangladeshi office of the United Nations agency for refugees, UNHCR, tweeted on Sunday that 90 buildings, including hospitals and educational facilities, had been destroyed by fire. Another tweet from the account stated, "Local fire services and volunteer Rohingya refugee firemen trained in firefighting have suppressed the fire. The burning on Sunday was a "ghastly reminder that children trapped in the camps in Cox's Bazar have a grim future," according to humanitarian organisation Save the Children. In a statement, the organisation stated that "today's big fire will have robbed many families of their safety and what few things they have left," and that "they continue to deal with inadequate schooling, worrisome levels of malnutrition, stunting, child marriage, and child labour." In social media, the Bangladesh office of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) of the UN stated that  "they are assessing the requirements of people to give help."  The fire that broke out on Sunday was one of the biggest in a string of flames that have recently devastated the camp. After a violent killing and arson campaign by the Myanmar military, an estimated 1 million members of the stateless Muslim minority known as the Rohingya now reside in what many believe to be one of the biggest refugee camps in the world.