There will be finger-pointing and there will be blame games. Right now, we do not know for certain who or what was responsible for the devastating fire at the Baluakhali Rohingya camp in Ukhiya. At least 11 people, including at least three children, were killed, and over 9,000 shanties were gutted. For the Rohingya, who came to Bangladesh to escape persecution, this fire is just the latest in a series of traumatic events.
While details are still unclear, one thing is for sure. A disaster like this should never have happened. In the first place, it is a humanitarian tragedy that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had to live in makeshift conditions away from home to escape the brutal actions of a military-controlled regime.
Adding another layer of regret to the tragedy is that we really should have learned more about fire safety by now. This newspaper has, over and over again, editorialized about the need to prioritize safety. Whether shanties in a refugee camp, or large urban buildings, we are woefully unprepared when it comes to taking precautions and enforcing basic standards. It seems that we never learn our lesson -- incidents of large-scale fires have, alarmingly, become normalized in the public mind.
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First and foremost, it must be said that Myanmar is responsible for creating such a large humanitarian disaster in the first place, creating the need for such cramped quarters in a refugee camp which was always clearly a fire hazard.
The inaction of the world has also made the problem more overwhelming. Nevertheless, this is a multi-dimensional issue -- we cannot dodge the question of why such large fires keep happening in our country. We must leave no stone unturned in investigating what exactly happened at the camp, and work to ensure that it never happens again. The humanitarian need right now, at this crisis moment, should be greater than the need to pass the buck.