After raging fires, future of Rohingya refugees remains uncertain
Displacement / IDP
How the score is calculated
The score starts at 8. It adds points from recorded affected, deaths, displaced and casualty counts, plus terms found in the story title, event type or status. For each count, only its highest matching band is used.
- Affected people
- 1–999: +5 · 1,000–9,999: +12 · 10,000–99,999: +20 · 100,000–999,999: +28 · 1 million+: +35
- Deaths
- 1–9: +8 · 10–99: +14 · 100–999: +22 · 1,000+: +30
- Displaced people
- 1–9,999: +6 · 10,000–99,999: +12 · 100,000+: +18
- Casualties
- 100 or more: +8
- Story wording
- +10 for terms such as catastrophe, famine, war, conflict, major earthquake, mass casualty or critical. Otherwise, +5 for active, ongoing, emergency, outbreak, cyclone or hurricane.
Score bands: Watch 0–24 · Moderate 25–49 · High 50–74 · Critical 75–100. Scores are capped at 100. Missing or unparseable figures add no points.
This is a rule-based WorldsAid triage indicator, not an official or independently validated classification. It does not account for recency or local context, and it can understate events with incomplete reporting. Check the linked sources.
Historical record
Status: CLOSED · Imported 2026-10-07
Closed for this historical import at the site owner’s request; not a new assessment of current conditions.
In brief
- What happenedLast month, a massive fire swept through the largest refugee camp in the world in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live.
- How many affectedAffected persons: 45,000 · Displaced persons: 45,0000
- What help is neededHow many more times I may witness my shelter being burnt down to ashes..." For Ismael and his neighbors, the fire brings painful memories of their flight to Bangladesh in 2017.
What changed
First retained snapshot
No earlier verified snapshot is present in the recovered dataset. This record remains available as the historical baseline.
Situation
Last month, a massive fire swept through the largest refugee camp in the world in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where nearly one million Rohingya refugees live. The fire took 15 lives and burned down thousands of shelters and health facilities, leaving more than 45,0000 people displaced. Our teams met Ismael, 35, in the middle of the crowds and confusion. Ashes and burned debris are all we could see. His eyes fixed on the horizon, Ismael told one of Action Against Hunger’s psychosocial workers: "I was in the tea shop when I heard a fire broke out. How many more times I may witness my shelter being burnt down to ashes..." For Ismael and his neighbors, the fire brings painful memories of their flight to Bangladesh in 2017. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya saw their homes burned and communities razed, forcing them to flee Rakhine State nearly four years ago. "They burned my house and all that I had in it,” recalls Ismael. Today, living in overcrowded camps, the plight of the displaced Rohingya remains extremely fragile. “In the light of raging fires, my future is still obscure,” says Ismael. FIRE LEAVES THOUSANDS TRAUMATIZED The fire destroyed homes, belongings, and important documents, including identification and data cards, that allow Rohingya refugees to work and access food and essential services in Cox’s Bazar. Many people, particularly children, were separated from their families as they ran to find safety amidst extreme chaos and confusion. Repeated shocks and stresses have caused a spike in mental health needs. Action Against Hunger teams are on the ground , working tirelessly to provide psychological first aid, in addition to serving meals, rehabilitating facilities and water points, and reconnecting families. When they fled Myanmar, Ismael stepped up to serve as a community leader known as a Majhi . "Helping people gives me hope,” he says. “It keeps me going." As Majhi , he feels a great responsibility to care for his community. In the wake of the fire, he has not been able to stop thinking about the victims trapped in the blaze – and what more he could have done to help them: "I could have acted promptly…I was sure that the fire would not reach our block." Action Against Hunger’s teams of psychosocial workers have been deployed to offer counseling and support to hundreds of people like Ismael, who are dealing with feelings of guilt, anger, fear, and more as a result of this new trauma. During his counselling session, Ismael began to understand how normal his feelings were. As he spoke and our psychosocial worker listened, he started to feel a little lighter. Violent and deadly shocks continue to hit the Rohingya community, leaving deep marks on the entire society, especially on children. Refugee camps are the last resort for persecuted communities, who have nowhere else to go. The humanitarian community, along with other key stakeholders, must seek sustainable and dignified solutions for the displaced Rohingya, and until then, refugee camps should be rebuilt in a safer way to prevent future fires and other hazards.
Linked charities and agencies
WorldsAid verification
A WorldsAid editor reviewed this record against 1 attributed source, cleaned feed formatting and checked the crisis, place and reporting date. 2 human-impact figures were separated from the narrative and dated where the source allowed. Earlier observations remain in the evidence history instead of being silently overwritten.
Verified figures
- Affected persons
- 45,000 retained at 2021-04-08
- Displaced persons
- 45,0000 retained at 2021-04-08
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Last verification represented by this immutable snapshot.
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Verified
SHA-256 697e06428ab7e65f7b1b818407f59a3b06e1fa48ad8238b1d41762b6c04b7f5d