Arakan News Agency
A 22-year-old Rohingya youth died and a child was injured on Sunday evening after a mud wall collapsed in a refugee camp in the Ukhiya area of Cox’s Bazar, amid severe weather and heavy rainfall across the camps.
The incident occurred in Block D-3 of Camp No. 2 in Ukhiya, resulting in the death of a camp resident named Mohammad Ayas, while Kamal Uddin, aged 12, was injured, according to The Observer.
Ukhiya Executive Officer Mohammad Kamrul Islam Chowdhury stated that both Ayas and Kamal were rescued from beneath the debris with the help of camp residents and taken to the Bangladesh Red Crescent Primary Health Care Hospital.
He added that Ayas was referred to Cox’s Bazar General Hospital due to the severity of his condition, but he passed away while receiving treatment. The condition of the injured child remains unknown.
Chowdhury noted that both individuals had recently arrived in the camps from Myanmar and had not yet received their biometric registration cards.
The incident comes amid ongoing severe weather conditions in the camps, with warnings of continued thunderstorms and heavy rains. Relief agencies have urged Rohingya refugees to relocate to safer areas.
Rainfall began in the camps last Wednesday following alerts from the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, which warned of heavy rain and potential landslides in hilly regions.
Last Friday, heavy rain hit the Rohingya camps, causing many fragile shelters to collapse after being flooded, forcing residents to flee to safer zones.
Additionally, 11 Rohingya refugees were injured by lightning strikes that hit several camps in the Cox’s Bazar area on Sunday evening, coinciding with intense thunderstorms and torrential rain.
Bangladesh currently hosts over one million Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar area — classified by the United Nations as the world’s largest refugee settlement — after they fled a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing launched by the Myanmar military in 2017. The influx has grown further since renewed fighting erupted between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (a separatist group) in November 2023, leading to further violence, displacement, and forced conscription of Rohingya civilians.
