Eight killed in landslides at Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
More than 1.2 million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- At least eight Rohingya, including children, died in landslides caused by heavy monsoon rain in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.
- The camps are on steep, deforested hills vulnerable to landslides, and the authorities are relocating people from high-risk areas to prevent more deaths.
- Renewed fighting in Myanmar may cause more refugees to cross into Bangladesh, where heavy rain continues and landslides and floods remain a serious threat.
AI generated
DHAKA - At least eight Rohingya Muslims, including children, were killed and several others injured early on July 6 after heavy monsoon rain triggered multiple landslides at refugee camps in south-eastern Bangladesh, officials said.
More than 1.2 million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee settlement, after fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are accused of being outsiders.
Most families live in makeshift shelters made of bamboo and plastic sheets on steep, deforested hillsides that are highly vulnerable to landslides during the annual monsoon season.
The landslides hit four locations across the camps, burying shelters under mud and debris while residents were asleep. A Bangladeshi man was killed and two family members were injured when part of a hillside collapsed onto their house in Cox’s Bazar, the police said.
“We were asleep when the landslide struck,” said Ali Ahmed, who lost three family members when their bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelter was buried in the disaster.
“Fire Service personnel and neighbours rescued us, but my mother, father and younger brother did not survive.”
“We fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape persecution. Nowm I’ve lost my family here too, and I don’t know what lies ahead for me.”
Continued rainfall had increased the risk of further landslides, with thousands of refugees still living on unstable slopes, said Tumpa Das, a police official in Cox’s Bazar.
Rohingya refugee Mohammed Taher said: ““Every time heavy rain begins, fear spreads through the camps.
“Thousands live in bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters on unstable hillsides, where even a minor landslide can become a deadly disaster.”
The authorities have already relocated at least 1,000 Rohingya refugees from landslide-prone areas to safer places and plan to move several thousand more in phases, officials said.
“Awareness campaigns are also under way across the camps to reduce the risk of further casualties,” said Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner.
Renewed fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has raised concern of a fresh influx of Rohingya refugees across the border. The Bangladeshi authorities have stepped up monitoring along the frontier amid reports of people gathering near the border seeking to enter the country.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department has forecast more heavy rain in the coming days, prompting the authorities to remain on alert for additional landslides and flash floods.
Landslides and flooding are common during the monsoon season in the refugee camps, often killing people and damaging homes, roads and other facilities. REUTERS