Heavy monsoon rains have washed away sprawling Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, turning settlements into fast-flowing rivers overnight. At least 11 people have died, officials said, and thousands are homeless once again. Mamunur Rashid, a local official in Cox’s Bazar, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have lived for years after fleeing neighboring Myanmar, said that at least six people had died on Tuesday in the Balukhali and Palong Khali camps, including one child. Since 2017, more than 730,000 members of the Rohingya ethnic group have crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing a vicious military campaign of killing, rape and arson in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where the government does not consider them rightful citizens. The United Nations has called Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya, who are predominantly Muslim, “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

Source: International New York Times July 28, 2021 13:06 UTC