The alert: 6,000 children are homeless after a fire broke out in a refugee camp in Bangladesh

In a short time, thousands of primitive tent dwellings, built of bamboo and tarpaulin, were engulfed in flames. The fire on Sunday They quickly spread into the densely populated camp in Cox’s Bazar, where fewer than a million refugees live.

The fire was brought under control after a few hours, but at least 16,000 people were affected, and about 6,000 children were left homeless. About 20 people are still missing.

– Izzatullah Majeed, head of the UNICEF field office in the camp, tells SVT Nyheter that children sleep with plastic bags only for protection.

“I lost it all”

The camp mainly houses the Rohingya who fled oppression and persecution in Myanmar.

– The homes of many refugees in Myanmar were burned and they had few clothes and a mobile phone. Now they have lost everything. Although the tents could be quickly rebuilt, they lost what little security they used to have, says Daniel Aftonfalk, disaster manager for the Swedish Red Cross, which helps with water purification and reconstruction, among other things.

He himself was in the camp last November. By then the population had recovered The Great Fire of 2021.

Volunteers practice firefighting

According to the Red Cross, the risk of more fires is high. Now is also a dry season with strong winds, which increases the risk.

According to Amnesty International, there have been hundreds of fire incidents since 2021 alone, and therefore the organization wants to see more action to reduce the risk of fire.

– Smaller fires happen from time to time and that’s something we’ve worked with on site to deal with. Volunteers have received fire suppression training and some firefighting equipment has been deployed. Some have been able to start using gas for cooking instead of burning wood in tents, which reduces the risk somewhat, says Daniel Aftonfuk.

The cause of the fire is still not clear and an investigation is still underway. There were no reports of injuries.