Monsoon landslides kill eight Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps

Heavy monsoon rain triggered landslides across four Rohingya camps in southeastern Bangladesh early Monday, killing at least eight refugees, including some children. A Bangladeshi man was also killed and two family members were injured when part of a hillside collapsed onto their home.

The slides struck while residents were asleep, burying shelters under mud and debris in settlements where more than 1.2 million Rohingya now live. Most arrived after Myanmar’s 2017 military crackdown in Rakhine State, and many remain in makeshift homes built from bamboo and plastic sheets on steep, deforested slopes that become dangerous every monsoon season. Myanmar has denied them citizenship, leaving the Rohingya as the world’s largest stateless population.

Tumpa Das, a police official, said, “Eight people have died in landslides caused by heavy rain.” Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the Bangladeshi official responsible for refugee relief and repatriation, said authorities were moving people out of high-risk areas “as quickly as possible” to prevent more casualties. Continued rainfall had raised the risk of further slides, and Bangladesh’s meteorological department forecast more heavy rain in the coming days.

The camps have long been vulnerable because overcrowding leaves little safe ground and fragile shelters offer scant protection when slopes give way. Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are highly exposed to cyclones, flooding and landslides because of the camps’ location and the country’s disaster risk. In June 2025, torrential monsoon rains damaged more than 1,400 shelters and affected thousands of families in Cox’s Bazar.

In March 2026, the United Nations Development Programme’s slope-stabilization work in Camp 10 used vertical grasses, improved drainage and other nature-based measures to reduce erosion and landslide risk, with the project expected to reach 900 beneficiaries and generate more than 14,000 person-days of work. Humanitarian funding shortfalls are squeezing those efforts. This year, UNHCR and partners launched a $710.5 million appeal for Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh, 26 percent lower than the previous request.

Landslides across the Cox’s Bazar camps killed 28 people and injured at least 80 between 2021 and 2026, including 12 deaths in 2024 alone. In June 2024, monsoon landslides killed 10 people, including at least seven Rohingya refugees, and affected about 8,000 more.