Monsoon landslide kills five children at Rohingya camp school in Bangladesh

Monsoon downpours set off a landslide that tore through an Islamic school inside a Rohingya refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar, in southeastern Bangladesh, leaving at least five children dead, according to a fire service official.

The sprawling camp houses more than one million refugees. Dollar Tripura, who heads the Fire Service and Civil Defense locally, reported that the slope collapse struck while pupils were in class.

Tripura said crews pulled five other children from the debris with injuries and feared additional victims may still lie trapped underneath. Search-and-rescue work was still under way Wednesday evening.

Only three days before, separate landslides claimed at least eight lives in Rohingya camps nearby. Forecasters at the meteorological office in Dhaka, the capital, warned that further rainfall is expected over the next several days.

Officials said they are moving refugees out of vulnerable hillside zones, with more than 1,000 people already shifted to safer ground. They noted that many residents remain unwilling to abandon their temporary shelters even after being cautioned.

For years, Bangladesh has pressed other nations to support sending the refugees back to Myanmar, yet repatriation talks have made no progress.