A landslide struck a girls’ school within a refugee camp in Bangladesh, killing seven students and a teacher. On Wednesday afternoon, mud and debris buried the Islamic study center in the coastal city of Cox’s Bazar, prompting a desperate search and rescue operation.
The number of persons within the school is unknown. Since Sunday, the nation has been pummeled by monsoon rains; in Cox’s Bazar, many fatal landslides have been recorded. The biggest refugee camp in the world is home to over a million Rohingya who escaped a violent military crackdown in Myanmar.
According to Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, 13 people were rescued from the muck that swallowed their school house; eight of them perished. “Some of them are seven, eight, 11 or 12 years old,” local district official Panna Akhter told BBC Bangla. For treatment, the other five kids were brought to the hospital.
At least eight Rohingya refugees, including five children, have been killed by further landslides since Sunday, according to earlier reports from authorities.
During an army operation in Myanmar in 2017, thousands of Rohingya, one of the country’s numerous ethnic minorities, were slaughtered, and over 700,000 fled to neighboring Bangladesh. The government of Myanmar, a country with a majority of Buddhists, denies citizenship to the minority, which is mostly Muslim.
In Bangladesh, many people live in substandard housing made of bamboo and tarpaulin on steep slopes. Authorities are warning of further landslides and floods and relocating residents in high-risk regions as more rain is predicted over the next several days.
Also Read – Video: Iran Releases First Footage Of Khamenei’s Home Destroyed In Strikes