Landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have killed at least nine people, including eight Rohingya refugees, in southeastern Bangladesh. Hillsides collapsed at four locations in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camps between late Sunday and early Monday morning, burying shelters under mud and debris while people were sleeping.

Rescuers recovered seven bodies, while another was found by refugees, Dollar Tripura, a civil defence official from Cox’s Bazar district, told The Associated Press. Police said a Bangladeshi man was killed after a hillside collapsed on his house.

Ali Ahmed, a Rohingya refugee, said his parents and younger brother were killed when their shelter was buried while they were asleep. “We fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape persecution. Now I’ve lost my family here too, and I don’t know what lies ahead for me,” he told Reuters.

More than a million Rohingya live in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar, the world’s largest refugee settlement, after fleeing Myanmar in 2017 following a military crackdown. Most homes and shelters are built with bamboo and plastic sheets on steep, deforested hillsides, making them prone to landslides and flooding during the yearly monsoon season. Thirty-six refugees died in similar landslides between 2021 and 2026, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Authorities have moved about 1,000 refugees from landslide-prone slopes and are planning to relocate several thousand more. The meteorological department has forecast more heavy rain in the coming days. Renewed fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state between the military and the Arakan Army has raised concerns that more people may attempt to flee across the border into Bangladesh. Bangladeshi authorities are stepping up monitoring amid reports of people gathering near the frontier.

Source: www.aljazeera.com