March 24, 2021: International Humanitarian organization Educo warns that children are the most affected by the latest fire that occurred yesterday in the Rohingya refugee camp Cox’s Bazar. It also laments the deaths of at least seven people in the fire, two of them children. “It is a real tragedy. People have lost their lives, including children. Many others have seen how their precarious homes have been completely destroyed and they have lost everything”, explains Matiur Rahaman, Director – Humanitarian aid program, Educo Bangladesh. It is estimated that the fire has affected almost 60,000 people, more than half of whom are children.

Educo works in two of the areas affected by this fire, one of the worst to take place in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp and the second that has occurred this year. In the areas the NGO carries out its projects in, more than 7,500 refugees have suffered the consequences of the fire, of whom 4500 are children. However, it is estimated that the figure is much higher and could be as high as 40,000 people, 60% of whom are children.

When the fire started, Rahima, aged 12, and her family had to flee and take refuge in a stranger’s house. “I was really scared. When we went back, there was nothing. All of our things had been destroyed. Now we don’t even have any food. We need food, water, clothes and materials to build a new house”, she explains. Ashika also had to quickly flee her home when the fire started. “My parents got us out of the house. Me and my siblings left there alone. We were lost and there were lots of other children with us. I asked a stranger to lend us a mobile phone so we could phone our father. He took us back to our house and when I got there, I saw that it had been totally destroyed. Now we have nothing”.

As well as the precarious homes the Rohingya refugees live in, almost all the schools, child protection and health centres have been totally or partially destroyed by the fire. “Only by being here is it possible to understand how hard this is for the children. They have lost their homes, their schools, everything they had. And their school supplies. We are very concerned about how this situation is affecting them emotionally, on top of their refugee status and in a year in which COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll on their lives” says Matiur Rahaman.

Educo has been carrying out projects in Bangladesh for 20 years and has worked in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp since 2018. In the camp, it develops child protection projects with children and their families to raise awareness and prevent them from suffering all types of violence, such as gender-based violence or child marriage.

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