On March 5th 2023, a blaze engulfed the Rohingya refugee camp in the Cox Bazar area in Bangladesh, leaving thousands without shelters. Following the blaze, approximately a third of the camp was burnt to ashes, while hundreds of essential infrastructures were totally or partially damaged. Similar events occur periodically in refugee camps across the Middle East, Asia, and Africa however, efforts to mitigate the risk and prevent the loss of lives and assets have been limited so far.
Fire and water: a vital threat to vulnerable people
Cramming living spaces, flammable bamboo-made shelters, and lack of expertise and proper structures to manage fire are all risk multiplicators for millions of vulnerable and underlined once again the need to prevent these hazards and how to address them in the best way possible.
More than one billion people – nearly one-seventh of the global population – live in slums or refugee camps. Low and middle-income countries, which are home to many of the world’s informal settlements, account for nearly half of the 130,000 deaths resulting from fire globally each year. A fire in an informal settlement can affect thousands of people, causing destruction and a long-term impact on livelihoods.
Recovery from fire is a long and difficult process that can become almost impossible in this kind of environment where a lack of insurance, financial instability, and insecure tenure is common. Similarly, incidents related to water, such as flooding and water-related deaths, are on the rise. At least 1.4 billion people have been affected by droughts and 1.6 billion by floods in the last twenty years. Water-related disaster deaths have more than doubled in the last 10 years and nearly 95% of infrastructure loss and damage reported were due to water-related disasters.
Furthermore, in the last 50 years, floods led to economic losses of US$115 billion, while droughts led to the largest human losses causing 650.000 deaths. In many nations, and particularly in low-income countries of the South-East Pacific, water is a dominant element in the landscape. In rural areas, villages are surrounded by rivers and canals, which serve as water resources for household needs, agriculture, fishing and transportation. In a country such as Bangladesh, where the water is predominant, drowning mortality is the leading cause of death for children, with approximately 17.000 lost their lives each year due to drowning and lack of proper water safety awareness.
MOAS DRR to help capacity building
MOAS has been working for years in the framework of Disaster Risk Reduction, providing partner organisations with technical advice and consultancy services on reducing hazards in refugee camps. Focusing on training and prevention could save lives and create a safer environment for millions of people living in overcrowded refugee camps worldwide.
The risk mapping model allows our technical experts to advise camp management and other stakeholders on areas of particular risk and develop response strategies according to each context, while the training also provides first-response skills and strategy implementation techniques to community-based volunteers.
Concerning the fire hazard, MOAS’s team has prototyped several camp-context-specific pieces of equipment, including fire-fighting tuk-tuks and backpacks, and is producing and procuring/distributing across several projects. With unique know-how, MOAS’ Emergency Preparedness and Response specialists have developed one of a kind tools to respond to the risks posed by fire and delivered bespoke training to locals. In the last two years, MOAS has developed a DRR strategy that has proven effective and has prevented a number of blazes in Cox’s Bazar and plans to expand this know-how in other parts of the world which are needed.
Since 2019 MOAS has been focused on Flood and Water Safety, with courses that have trained over 3000 volunteers globally, providing the latest flood and water rescue techniques and delivering technical expertise to local partners.
The aim is to create resilience against water-related risks and supports the self-development of local communities, improving leadership and teamwork practices, thus strengthening the capacity building. These programs also provide livelihoods to local tailors who make the safety equipment and receive up-skilling as part of the project.
MOAS not only creates the tools but supports the in-country partners in reducing the risks and responding to incidents in real-world contexts.
“Our Disaster Risk Reduction program focuses on three main topics; risk assessment, first response training, and the prototyping and manufacture of firefighting equipment. Prevention of water and fire risk-related incidents could save lives and create a safer environment for millions of people living in overcrowded refugee camps worldwide,” underlined Regina Catrambone, Director and Co-Founder of MOAS.
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