Bangladesh Evacuates Rohingya Refugees After Deadly Monsoon Landslides

DHAKA-Bangladesh authorities began relocating Rohingya refugees from landslide-prone areas in camps at Cox’s Bazar on Thursday after days of monsoon-triggered landslides killed at least 13 refugees, including five children who died when an Islamic school collapsed.

Officials used loudspeakers, volunteers and community leaders to warn residents and move families from high-risk areas as heavy rain continued and forecasters predicted further downpours. Authorities said more than 1,000 refugees had already been evacuated, although many residents were reluctant to leave their makeshift shelters despite repeated warnings.

The latest tragedy occurred on Wednesday when a landslide swept through an Islamic school in one of the refugee camps, where more than one million Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar are living.

Begum Jahan, a teacher at the school, said girls were preparing for lessons when part of the building collapsed. She said those on one side of the structure managed to escape, while others were buried beneath the debris. Several students suffered injuries, including broken arms, while others were killed.

Dollar Tripura, head of the local fire service and civil defense, said refugees initiated rescue efforts before emergency responders arrived. Rescue teams later recovered bodies and transported injured survivors to hospitals before ending the operation on Wednesday evening.

Jamal Hossain, a Rohingya volunteer involved in the rescue effort, said those rescued from the site were taken for medical treatment and that all those confirmed dead were women. He added that rescuers could not immediately determine whether additional victims remained trapped beneath the debris.

The latest fatalities followed another series of landslides between Sunday night and Monday that killed at least eight people in Rohingya camps in the Cox’s Bazar district.

According to local authorities, continued rainfall has heightened the risk of further landslides across the hilly refugee settlements, prompting precautionary evacuations.

Local media reported that at least 22 people had died across Bangladesh over the past three days in landslides and wall collapses linked to the monsoon. The reported toll includes those killed in the Rohingya refugee camps, according to the Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo.

Bangladesh hosts more than one million Rohingya refugees who fled violence in neighboring Myanmar. The government has repeatedly appealed to the international community to help facilitate the refugees’ repatriation, but the process has remained stalled.

The ongoing monsoon season poses recurring risks in the densely populated camps, where fragile shelters built on steep hillsides are vulnerable to flooding and landslides during periods of heavy rainfall.