Around 8 pm on Wednesday, a fire broke out at a Rohingya camp in Haryana’s Nuh district, gutting over 30 shanties and displacing 102 Rohingyas.
As per Sabbir Ahmed, founder of Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, no casualties were reported and the fire, suspected to have been caused by a short circuit in a wire, took more than an hour to douse.
“We have lost everything. All our savings, belongings, documents are gone,” Noor Begum, whose house was among the first to be burnt down, told Maktoob.
She said that she saw her house reduce to ashes before her.
“The fire victims have lost all their belonging including their ration and documentation issued by UNHCR and the worst thing is they have lost the documents which they have saved and brought from Myanmar by giving them much more value to their lives and properties,” said Sabbir Ahmed, a Rohingya activist.
Sabbir’s group Rohingya Human Rights Initiative has requested the government agencies and UNCHR and its implementing partners to provide them a safe shelter that can be avoidable from such tragedy and to fulfill their daily basic needs.
As it is not the first time such tragedy has taken place but in June this year, the same fire incident took place in Delhi and Jammu, and Kashmir.
“We urge the Government of India to independently investigate the matter so that no such tragedy takes place in the future. As it is known to everyone that such tragedy is taking place due to the false propaganda of some media channels, we urge you to investigate those media channels that propagate false news,” Sabbir said.
An estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees, many believed to be undocumented, live in camps across Indian cities, including Jammu, Hyderabad and Nuh.
The fire comes amid an Indian government crackdown on Rohingya refugees living in the country.
Narendra Modi government had said it will deport the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar in contravention of the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids a country from returning refugees to a country where they would face torture.