Wild elephants in Bangladesh kill four Rohingya refugees as they built a shelter
Wild elephants killed four Rohingya refugees – including three children – as they were building a shack on forest land in Bangladesh yesterday.
Police said the incident occurred at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar district, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have set up makeshift shelters since fleeing violence in Myanmar.
“They were trampled to death by seven or eight wild elephants. They include a woman and three children,” said Afrozul Haq Tutul, deputy police chief of Cox’s Bazar. Two people were injured, he said. The victims were building a shack in an area of forest where wild elephants often search for food.
This is the second time Rohingya refugees have been attacked by wild elephants in the area. Previously two Rohingya – an elderly person and a child – were killed by elephants as they slept in a makeshift shelter.
About 536,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh since violence broke out on August 25 in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Space at established refugee camps has been all but exhausted, with new arrivals hacking away trees and other vegetation anywhere they can to erect shelters from the monsoon rains. Many are camping in the open or along roadsides.
The Bangladesh government has allocated 1,214 hectares of forest land to build proper shelters for the refugees but many have already set up shacks before the actual construction begins.
A Cox’s Bazar district forest official said that clashes between animals and refugees were inevitable. “This is a reserve forest land, frequented by wild Asian elephants all the time,” he said.
The authorities want to extend the existing camps around Kutupalong and Balukhali into a refugee city for 800,000.
The UN has said such a settlement would be dangerously overcrowded.