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A massive fire left 7,000 people, including thousands of children, homeless

The fire the world ignored

A fire wreaked havoc and left thousands of people homeless — but it barely made the news.

During the early hours of January 7, inside a sprawling community of around 1 million people, a fire started.

It jumped from one structure to another, quickly becoming a massive blaze that engulfed hundreds of properties.

Photos and videos of the inferno show people desperately trying to save homes, using the limited equipment on offer.

But, as advocates point out with a mix of frustration and sadness, most people around the world didn’t notice.

Because this fire happened in a Rohingya refugee camp.

t’s been really heartbreaking,” says Noor Azizah, the co-founder and director of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network.

In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, scores of Rohingya refugees continue to live in ever-worsening conditions.

But the passage of time combined with a string of other international crises has seen the world turn its gaze from the Rohingya, with the latest fire receiving little, if any, media coverage in Australia and elsewhere in the world.

“We are the forgotten people,” Ms Azizah says.

And Ms Azizah, along with others still closely following the Rohingya crisis, are urging Australia to do much more.

The fire started around 1am in Camp 5, one of the 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar which together make up the largest refugee settlement in the world.

“It occurred at a time when people were deeply asleep,” says Mohammed Aziz, a Rohingya refugee who lives in nearby Camp 1.

Rows of cramped, makeshift shelters were soon ablaze, with families, elderly people and children making panicked escapes.

“The fire spread and got bigger so fast that most of the people couldn’t save any of their belongings,” Mr Aziz says.

He describes how the camps’ lack of proper firefighting resources and bad roads meant the fire could “continue its devastation” into the night.

“Because of the camps’ congested infrastructure, fires pose a big danger.”

Read on……….

For more information please visit: https://www.abc.net.au/news/world/asia-pacific

A massive fire left 7,000 people, including thousands of children, homeless

Neil Bibby

Neil Bibby

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