‘I pray to God, we find my son’: Rohingya survivors tell of horror inside Bangladesh camp inferno

Rohingya refugees are continuing the search for family members after an inferno swept through a refugee camp in the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Monday. Four hundred are missing and 15 have been confirmed dead, the UN has said.

This morning, among the rubble and ash, bodies were being wrapped in white cloth as Islamic funerals were held in memory of those lost to the blaze. Officials continue to investigate the source of the fire in the Kutupalong-Balukhali camp, where at least 560 people have been injured.

Mohammad Islam, 48, has not seen his nine-year-old son since Monday morning. The child was last seen at an Islamic school based in the camp.

“All I know is that the teachers told the children to leave the madrassa and find shelter [as] the fire came closer to the building,” he told The Independent. “My son has not been seen after he was told to go home. There was no home to go to because it was burnt to ash. Everything is gone.”

Mohammad witnessed shelters, supermarkets and mosques become engulfed by the fire within hours. He said: “I noticed smoke in the afternoon, but it was not near my block and I thought it would be contained.

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“Within hours, the fire had spread to where [my family] lived. I looked outside and saw everyone screaming and running. I am in a wheelchair, so I thought I would die.

“I managed to escape but I saw many of my neighbours trapped in the fire. I witnessed three dead bodies burn in front of my own eyes. I saw others crying for help. I could not do anything because of my disability.”

Pictures of the fire and its victims are circulating on Whatsapp groups: images showing charred bodies of children and footage of voices screaming into black smog are causing panic for those who still have loved ones missing.

Mohammad added: “I pray to God that we find my son, Mohammad Umair, and all the other missing children.”

Saddek Hussen, 32, lives in the same area of the camp as Mohammad Islam – several blocks away from where the fire is thought to have started. The camp is home to 124,000 people and 45,000 of them had their homes damaged or destroyed in the fire, the UN reports.

Saddek, who is a volunteer at World Vision International, said: “This fire is the darkest moment in the camps. The only thing worse was when we had to leave our home country in Burma to come to Bangladesh.”

Many of the Rohingya in these camps left their home country, Myanmar, because of a violent military crackdown in 2017, which the United Nations described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

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Recalling the day of the fire, Saddek said: “I saw so many people trying to climb out of the camps. They were cutting themselves on the barbed wire.”

Refugees International said it was this barbed wire that left many children unable to flee from the fire. Both the 28km of security fencing and the watchtowers placed around the camps have been subject to criticism from the international community.

Saddek was one of many refugees who attempted to stop the spread of the fire. “I first saw [the blaze] at 2.30pm while working at World Vision. I came out of the office and ran towards it to try and put it [out].

“I couldn’t believe how quickly it spread. Gas cylinders [used for cooking] in the camp exploded when the fire reached them. The homes are made from bamboo, so it spread very fast.

“Within hours the fire had spread to my home. I lost everything – all my belongings, all my children’s belongings. All we have are the clothes on our backs. My house is just black now. Just rubble.”

Saddek is attending several Janazah (funeral) ceremonies today, as some of the dead bodies are being identified by the authorities and their families notified.

He said: “My wife and three children are homeless. That day was chaos. We saw so many people screaming and so many homes destroyed. We ran to a field to wait for the fire to stop.

“I don’t know what we will do. We don’t have anything, no money. Everything has vanished.”

The Cox’s Bazar camps are made up of thousands of tightly packed makeshift shelters, which have been described by the UNHCR as “highly flammable”. Just a few months ago, on 14 January, another fire caused mass destruction in the Nayapara camp – though no deaths were reported.

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It is the world’s most densely populated area, with a million people estimated to be living in the shelters.

In a report by the EU Civil Protection Mechanism on fire safety in Rohingya refugee camps, it states that the dense living conditions and unsafe cooking practices are responsible for most fires in Cox’s Bazar.

However, as those living in the camps start to come to terms with the destruction left behind from Monday afternoon, conspiracies that these fires are being orchestrated by someone are spreading quickly in the community.

Saad Hammadi from Amnesty International tweeted that the “frequency of fire in the camps is too coincidental, especially when outcomes of previous investigations into the incidents are not known and they keep repeating”.

Mohammad Islam shares this suspicion: “I don’t know what caused the fire, but I understand the government want us to move to Bhasan Char. Many people are saying this.”

Last year, Bangladesh began to shift hundreds of Rohingyas to the remote island in the Bay of Bengal over concerns about overcrowding, despite protests from humanitarian groups. Distrust between the refugees and the government continues to intensify because of this.

However, Zakir Hossain Khan, a senior police official, made it clear that “the cause of the fire is still unknown. Authorities are investigating.”