EU sends $1M humanitarian aid to rebuild Rohingya refugee camp after fire

BRUSSELS

The EU supports Rohingya refugees with €1 million ($1.06 million) in emergency humanitarian aid after a fire outbreak in Bangladesh’s biggest refugee camp, the European Commission announced on Friday.

“The EU has released €1 million in emergency humanitarian assistance” to ease the “devastating consequences” of the fire in the Cox's Bazar district’s Rohingya refugee camp, the EU executive body said in a statement.

The aid will support the reconstruction of shelters and sanitation facilities and cover emergency health interventions, including the prevention of disease outbreaks.

On March 5, a fire broke out and destroyed nearly 3,000 shelters and key infrastructure facilities at one of Cox’s Bazar district’s camps, hosting almost 1 million Rohingya refugees.

According to the UNHCR in Bangladesh, 16,000 people were affected and 155 facilities damaged in the blaze.

In 2017, a mass exodus of Rohingya people was provoked by Myanmar’s military brutal crackdown on the Muslim minority in the country’s northern region.

Since then, approximately 1.2 million Rohingyas fled to neighboring Bangladesh and now live in precarious situations.