A huge fire has swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh, the United Nations says, destroying homes belonging to thousands of people.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said more than 550 shelters that were home to around 3500 people were either totally or partially destroyed in the blaze early on Thursday, as well as 150 shops and a facility belonging to a non-profit organisation.
Photographs and video provided to Reuters by a Rohingya refugee in Nayapara Camp showed families including children, sifting through charred corrugated iron sheets to see if they could salvage anything from their still smouldering homes.
Hundreds of homes were destroyed in the fire. Source: AP
But little remained of the camp, which had stood for decades, aside from concrete poles and the husks of a few trees.
"E block is completely burned down," said the refugee, Mohammed Arakani. "There is nothing left. There was nothing saved. Everything is burned down."
"Everyone is crying," he said. "They lost all their belongings. They lost everything, completely burned down, they lost all their goods."
UNHCR said it was providing shelter, materials, winter clothes, hot meals, and medical care for the refugees displaced by the calamity at the camp in Cox's Bazaar district, a sliver of land bordering Myanmar in south-eastern Bangladesh.
"Security experts are liaising with the authorities to investigate on the cause of fire," the agency said, adding that no casualties were reported.
Mohammed Shamsud Douza, the deputy Bangladesh government official in charge of refugees, said the fire service spent two hours putting out the blaze but was hampered by the explosion of gas cylinders inside homes.
He said there had been no decision on whether shelters would be rebuilt or refugees moved elsewhere.
The Bangladesh government has moved several thousand Rohingya to a remote island in recent weeks, despite protests from human rights groups who say some of the relocations were forced, allegations denied by authorities.
More than a million Rohingya live in the mainland camps in southern Bangladesh, the vast majority having fled Myanmar in 2017 in a military-led crackdown the UN said was executed with genocidal intent, charges Myanmar denies.
Rohingya refugees walk in the charred remains after a fire broke out in Nayapara Camp in Coxs Bazar district, Bangladesh. Source: AP
The fire destroyed part of a camp inhabited by Rohingya who fled Myanmar after an earlier military campaign, according to refugees.
