DHAKA: At least eight Rohingya Muslims, including women and children, were killed and several others injured early on Monday after heavy monsoon rains triggered multiple landslides at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, officials said.
More than 1.2 million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee settlement, after fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are accused of being outsiders.
Most families live in makeshift shelters made of bamboo and plastic sheets on steep, deforested hillsides that are highly vulnerable to landslides during the annual monsoon season.
Fled persecution, lost family to landslide
The landslides hit four locations across the camps, burying shelters under mud and debris while residents were asleep. A Bangladeshi man was killed and two family members were injured when part of a hillside collapsed onto their house in Cox’s Bazar, police said.
