UN refugee agency seeks  more land for Rohingya camps amid deadly landslides

DHAKA — The UN refugee agency called on Thursday for additional land to ease overcrowding in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps after heavy rains triggered landslides that have killed at least 15 people.More than 1.2 million Rohingya refugees, many of whom fled Myanmar during a brutal military crackdown in 2017, live in congested camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar.The refugees live in basic shelters on hillsides cleared of trees — making the land unstable during monsoon rains. Authorities in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh used loudspeakers and a network of volunteers and community leaders to relocate people from risky areas to safety on Thursday.At least five children died Wednesday when a landslide caused by monsoon rains swept through an Islamic school at a camp in Cox’s Bazar..A teacher at the Islamic school described the scene from the landslide as chaotic, saying girls at the school were preparing for lessons when part of the building collapsed. “Those of us who were on the western side managed to get out, but everyone on the eastern side was buried under the debris,” said Begum Jahan, who teaches the Quran, Islam’s holy book.”Some suffered broken arms, and some of the girls lost their lives,” she said.Since Monday, at least 15 people have died in the camps and more than 4,000 refugees have been displaced after torrential rains triggered multiple landslides, officials said.In a report on Thursday, the UNHCR highlighted severe congestion in the camps and renewed calls for space expansion.“The incidents reinforce the importance of ongoing advocacy for camp space optimization and additional space, where feasible,” the report said.“Additional space would support safer relocation from high-risk areas.”Ivo Freijsen, a UNHCR representative in Bangladesh, said many of the dangers facing Rohingya refugees were “neither unforeseen nor unavoidable.”The lack of space, coupled with funding shortages, was limiting opportunities to decongest the most “overcrowded and hazardous locations and to plan safer infrastructure,” he said in a statement.Bangladesh authorities, who say they are already overstretched, have called for the dignified return of the Rohingya to their homeland.The 2017 Myanmar crackdown, when Rohingya villages were burned and civilians were killed, is the subject of a genocide case at the UN’s top court in The Hague.