Sabotage suspected in Rohingya camp fire, says official probe

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - The recent fire that left thousands of Rohingya people homeless in the southeastern coast of Bangladesh was an act of sabotage, according to an official probe on the incident.

The fire on March 5 hit Camp 11 in Cox’s Bazar, a border district which hosts more than a million Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled military crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.

"The Rohingya we spoke to have claimed that it was a planned sabotage," Abu Sufian, who led a seven-member government commission that investigated the incident, told a news conference on Sunday.

The investigators interviewed 75 people, including at least 50 Rohingya, who claimed that a rival Rohingya group set the tents on fire.

“At least five places caught fire within a short period of time. […] The day before the fire, there were shootings and clashes over dominance in that camp. Some people in the camps restricted refugees from dousing it, allowing the fire to burn the shelters,” Sufian said.

Refugees talking to Anadolu also termed the fire incident as sabotage and planned.

Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, a refugee rights activist in the Cox’s Bazar camp told Anadolu that “the fire wasn't accidental, but intentional -- set by one of the gangs.”

“The gangs, so-called freedom fighters, from within Rohingya have been taking advantage of our vulnerability, and by no means, they don't want us to survive peacefully as there are masterminds from overseas behind them,” he added.

The latest incident in which nearly 16,000 refugees were left homeless is a sign of growing turf wars in the world's largest refugee camp.