Bangladesh, the fire in the Cox’s Bazar camp where the Rohingya who fled Myanmar live was a “planned sabotage”

ROME – Writes Kelly Ng della BBC: “The fire that hit the largest refugee camp in the world last week was a ‘planned and intentional act of sabotage’, according to investigators. The March 5 fire in Bangladesh – continues the article in the BBC – left 15,000 Rohingya refugees homeless and gutted some 2,800 shelters. Militant groups had set fires to “dominate” the camps, the government official leading the investigation said. The fires had broken out in multiple places simultaneously, showing that it was planned, Abu Safian said.

There were no casualties. But the fire – reads the article BBC – destroyed homes and destroyed major infrastructure networks – schools, medical clinics and service points – in several districts of the Cox Bazaar camp. The seven-person group formed to investigate the fire, presented its report on Sunday after interviewing 150 eyewitnesses. He recommended further investigations to identify the groups behind the crash. The fire broke out at 2.30pm local time (8.30am GMT) at Camp 11 Cox Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh and was brought under control by evening, the report said.

Cox Bazar refugee camp. It is home to over a million refugees who fled Myanmar following a military crackdown on the Rohingya ethnic minority. They live in huts made of bamboo and thin plastic sheeting. Overcrowded and squalid, these refugee camps BBC – are vulnerable to fire. Initial reports of the Cox Bazar fire had suggested that the flames also spread rapidly through the gas stoves common in the camps. Between January 2021 and December 2022, there were 222 fires in Rohingya camps, including 60 arson, according to a Bangladesh Defense Ministry report released last month. In March 2021, at least 15 people were killed and around 50,000 displaced after a huge fire engulfed a camp in the settlement.