Fire!

On 5 March 2023, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, a severe and extensive fire erupted in Rohingya refugee Camp 11 during the afternoon hours. The flames burned for approximately three hours before local firefighters and authorities managed to control the situation. The Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner took charge, and humanitarian partners immediately arrived on the spot to assess the destruction and establish a harmonized response. The first responders to the fire were the Rohingya Community Volunteers, and they continued to provide aid to the camps along with other responders. No fatalities had been reported.

On 5 March 2023 JF-CPiE received a call from Rohingya Volunteers/CBCPC (Community based child protection committee) and site management of camp-16 that they identified 14 unaccompanied children who ran away from camp-11 to camp-16 because of the fire incident. As soon as we received the call from the field, our child protection team rushed to camp 16. The children looked pale and tired and frightened. After the handover from Camp in charge and site management, the Team mobilized foster families after addressing their immediate needs by providing clothes, food and trained volunteers to accompany with psychosocial support.

Sky-high flames and clouds of black smoke in the close-by hills were scary enough to make both sisters Yasmin, 12, and Nur Shehera, 10, startled with fear. Both of them knew the fire would take no time to spread in the hill where their makeshift shelter is. They rushed inside the shelter. Their parents weren’t at home; the father was at work outside the camp and the mother went to the hospital with their younger brother Rafiq,7. Yasmin and Nur picked up their little sister Eno-Safa,2, and brother Riyaj (8 months) from the cradle and immediately left the tent.

“We ran, ran, and ran! Everyone around us was running too. My hand and leg hurt from running while carrying my brother in my arm but I didn’t stop until we reached the highway where the fire couldn’t catch us anymore” says Yasmin, a Rohingya teenage girl, who witnessed the devastating fire incident.

Around 16,000 people were directly affected by the fire and more than 3000 shelters were burnt including people’s belongings and other facilities in the camp.

The incident was dangerously shocking to the children like Yasmin and her siblings especially those who were parted from their family members in the chaos.

“On the highway, a man helped us to get in an Easy Bike (rickshaw). We intended to go to our uncle’s home in another camp. but we lost track of the road and ended up in a camp beside the main road. We got lost” Yasmin says.

Yasmin and Nur were found while carrying two babies, hovering at the entry of Camp 16. The office of site management of Camp 16 took them in and contacted World Vision as the child protection co-focal in that camp requesting support.

World Vision received the liability of 14 children that afternoon to provide temporary shelter. Later, the JF-CPiE child protection team accompanied the children to foster families in the same camp.

“As soon as we received a call from the site management office, our child protection team rushed to camp 16. The children looked pale and tired and frightened. After taking the handover from the site management, we immediately accompanied them to the foster family after providing initial support” says Kamrul Hasan, child protection coordinator at World Vision.

JF-CPiE team managed to arrange and train 24 foster families across four camps to provide temporary shelter to the children during any emergency.

Yasmin and her siblings were fostered by a couple named Sayed Nur, 40 and Majida, 30. The couple has two daughters and two sons around the age of Yasmin and Nur Sherera, too.

“The foster family took really good care of us. We felt safe there. My younger brother was crying non-stop. Apart from the family, two young Rohingya girls were there to take care of my little siblings” Yasmin says.

“We found it interesting to become a foster family. If we give shelter and protection to other children today, god will protect my children one day” Says Majida, Rohingya mother and foster family member of World Vision.

Yasmin and her siblings were handed over to their parents that night around 9 pm. Other children were also handed over to their parents by the next day noon.

“Returning from the hospital, I was so worried about finding no one at home. The camp was still on fire. By the evening I found my elder daughter and second son near the army road. But Yasmin and the other three were nowhere. I looked for them everywhere and waited at the CIC office even when it was dark outside. I was so worried that I couldn’t think of returning home. Later at night, their father got a call from the camp office and confirmed our children’s location. I can’t express enough gratitude to keep my children protected” says Rabeya Khatun, 35, mother of Yasmin.

JF-CPiE successfully handed over the 14 children to their parents during the fire incident. Apart from the protection of children, we also distributed more than 5,000 hot meals to the affected Rohingya people in the fire.

The project managed to reunite 23 lost children with their families in the rohingya camps through case management under JF-CPiE-GFFO project when this report was done.

From October to April, during the dry season in Bangladesh, Rohingya refugee camps are at high risk to catch fire frequently due to their temporary settlements made of tarps and bamboo. Over the last five years, more than 200 fire incidents were been reported in the camp which increases the risk to the lives of the population and causes protection concerns, especially to the children.

“We have fear of the fire. We have risked our lives and left all our belonging back in Myanmar to escape from the violence there. Now, fire became a threat to our life in the camp. it doesn’t even let us sleep in peace” Rabeya commented, with concern.

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