Arakan News Agency | Exclusive
The body of 8-year-old Rohingya boy Ziaur Rahman, a resident of Camp 6 in the Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh, was found on Monday, a day after he went missing when he fell into a stream from a bamboo bridge that had become slippery due to heavy rainfall.
Local residents reported that the child slipped and fell into the water while returning home after delivering food to his father at his shop, as heavy rain was pouring at the time.
They told Arakan News Agency that extensive search efforts were carried out by locals and rescue teams throughout Sunday, until local fishermen discovered the boy’s body under the Customs Bridge near Camp 8E on Monday morning.
Cox’s Bazar has been experiencing days of continuous heavy rain, resulting in flooding and landslides that pose serious risks to thousands of refugees in the overcrowded Rohingya camps.
On Sunday evening, Ziaur Rahman went missing after slipping from a bamboo bridge while on his way to bring food to his father, who works as a vendor in Camp 6.
Bangladesh currently hosts over one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar camps, which the United Nations describes as the world’s largest refugee settlement. The majority fled Myanmar following a brutal military crackdown in 2017 that amounted to genocide. The displacement has worsened since renewed fighting erupted in November 2023 between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (a separatist group), further exposing the Rohingya to violence, displacement, and forced recruitment.
