Fire kills 16 Reang refugees

The fire from the garbage dump spread due to strong winds and engulfed as many as 300 houses,all made of thatch walls and hay roofs,killing at least 16 persons including four children, Ali told The Sunday Express from Agartala.

While several others were injured in the fire,it gutted the thatch houses within minutes. Several injured persons were shifted to the district hospital. Six of the critically burnt persons were being shifted to the state capital for better treatment,the DGP said. The fire has rendered as many as 300 families homeless,with the administration arranging shelter for the people,he said.

The Naishingpara cluster of camps are part of several cluster of camps in the Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura district where an estimated 30,000 people,all Reang (also Bru) refugees from neighbouring Mizoram have been staying for the past 13 years after they fled amid ethnic violence there. Several clusters of houses in Naishingpara together accommodate about 14,000 Reang refugees.

In March last year too,a similar fire had engulfed several houses in the Naishingpara refugee camps,but there was no loss of human lives.

The fire broke out at a time when a plan to send the displaced Reang tribals back to Mizoram was stuck midway due to various bureaucratic and administrative hurdles. About 350 families have,however,returned since November despite the hitches.