Rayerbazar fire
6000 victims cry for food, shelter
Shaheen Mollah
Taslima Begum, 19, along with her two children one 30 days old and the other two and a half years old were waiting in a long queue of those who had lost almost everything in the fire at Rayerbazar on Wednesday night and now are searching for blankets to save their children from cold."I could barely come out leaving all my belongings when the house caught fire. Now, we are passing the nights under the open sky," Taslima told The Daily Star yesterday. The young housewife is not sure if she will be one of the 1000 families who have been entitled to get blankets from the ward commissioner. At least 1500 families were affected by the fire at the Rayerbazar slum. Most of them are very poor and had been living in congested shanties at the cost of about Tk 500 to Tk 1000 per month. Taslima said she needs at least a blanket now just to keep her children warm at night. "My husband is a poor rickshaw puller. It is not possible for him to manage clothes and blankets at this moment," said Taslima, who had married Humayun of Kishoreganj four years ago and has been living in the Rayerbazar residence for a month. About 6000 people of the slum have been suffering acutely from shelter crisis following the fire. Though some of them took shelter in Rayer Bazar Community Centre and in neighbouring houses many are thrown into an inhumane situation living on the roadsides of the affected area. " Finding no shelter we are now compelled to sleep on burnt tin-sheets," said Ripona Begum, 30, a mother of five small children. Crises of food have added to the suffering. " The community centre distributed 20 kilograms of rice to each of the families, but we have no access to a kitchen, " said Champa, an old woman affected by the fire.
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