“I opened my eyes and ran. I ran with nothing but my seven-month old wrapped around my scarf,” recalled a woman. Her tears had dried, and her eyes tiredly strayed over the ashes that was all that remained of the shanty that had been her home since 2013.
Close to midnight on June 12, a fierce fire rapidly engulfed the Rohingya refugee camp in Madanpur Khadar in South Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj vicinity. Fifty six homes were reduced to ashes in bare minutes, while screaming residents, most of them asleep at the time the fire started, ran desperately to save their lives.
The fire left them no time to salvage any of their possessions. The fire took with it their meagre savings, their clothes and modest belongings, and most precious to them – the United Nations High Commission for Refugees-designated “refugee cards”, vital documents for people who have fled repression in their home country of Myanmar.
Another resident recalled, “I could not find my six-year-old child…