'Major' fire at Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh under control

A "major" fire that broke out at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying several homes, is now under control, police officials told Reuters, adding that there were no casualties. Faruque Ahmed, a local police official, said the cause of the fire was not clear. The refugee camps in Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh are prone to such blazes.

A "major" fire that broke out at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying several homes, is now under control, police officials told Reuters, adding that there were no casualties. The blaze hit Camp 11 in Cox's Bazar, a border district where more than a million Rohingya refugees live, with most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017, Rafiqul Islam, additional police superintendent at Cox's Bazar told Reuters.

"We currently don't have an estimate for damages but there are no reports of casualties," Islam said, adding that the blaze was under control and senior officials from the fire, police and refugee relief departments were present at the site. Faruque Ahmed, a local police official, said the cause of the fire was not clear.

The refugee camps in Cox's Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh are prone to such blazes. Similar fires occurred in Jan 2022 and March 2021. While the fire in 2022 only damaged homes, the massive blaze in 2021 killed at least 15 refugees and destroyed over 10,000 homes.

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