Guwahati News Desk: In a huge fire in the Rohingya refugee camp forced around 20,000 Rohingya to flee and five feared dead on Monday.
The fire occurred in the southeastern Bangladesh refugee camps and it is the third fire to hit the settlements in four days.
According to reports, one million of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in cramped and squalid conditions at the camps in the Cox’s Bazar district.
Cox’s Bazar administrator, Mamunur Rashid said, “It is a massive fire. At least 20,000 people fled their homes as the fire spread. We doused the fire in one place and it spreads to other places.”
A police inspector, Gazi Salahuddin said the fire was doused at around midnight and officers have heard that five people including three children and two women have died from the fire.
“We heard five people have died from the fire and their bodies are in the camps,” Salahuddin said, adding police can’t put out any statement unless they recovered the bodies.
Salahuddin said the fire was initially small and confined to a narrow strip, but it grew and raced to other camps after gas cylinders used for cooking exploded.