Landslides kill at Least Eight Rohingya Refugees, Destroy Hundreds of Shelters
The damaged structure of a shelter after a landslide killed three family members in Camp 15 of the Cox's Bazar Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, on July 6, 2026 | Niyamot Ullah/Mekong Independent/Creative Commons
In an article for Mekong Independent, Niyamot Ullah writes about the aftermath of deadly landslides affecting Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh.
After two days of relentless monsoon rain, Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar have once again been devastated by deadly landslides and flooding, leaving families mourning loved ones while hundreds of shelters have been destroyed.
The camps, home to more than 1.3 million Rohingya Refugees, are built across steep hillsides and low-lying valleys using bamboo and tarpaulin shelters. Every monsoon season, these settlements become highly vulnerable to landslides, flash floods and collapsing shelters, placing thousands of families at risk.
The continuous downpour caused multiple landslides across the camps early Monday, killing at least eight Rohingya Refugees, including one child who drowned.
Refugee Relief and Repatriation commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman spoke of the deaths and damage in a speech on Monday, expressing regret for the lives lost. “Efforts are ongoing to relocate people from risk-prone areas to prevent further accidents,” he said.
Amid the wreckage was a 12-year-old girl, the eldest of five siblings, who had lost both her parents. Her father, Kamal Hossain, 44, had been on night duty to patrol Block D-6 of Camp 15 and came home at 12:30 a.m.
