Fire breaks out at a Rohingya camp in Bangladesh

A fire has broken out at a crowded refugee camp in southeastern Cox’s Bazar district, in Myanmar.

Cox’Bazar district is home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims, who fled persecution in Myanmar, an official said on Monday.

Mamunur Rashid, the chief administrator of the city, told dpa that firefighters, members of the armed forces and the police had rushed to the scene after being told a fire had broken out at one of the camps in Balukhali in the Ukhiya sub-district.

Rashid was unable to say how large the fire was.

A local official from the Fire Service and Civil Defence said four fire engines were battling the flames.

The official, who asked not to be named, said the extent of the damage would only be clear once the firefighters had returned.

More than one million Rohingya Muslims were living in shelters constructed mainly from polyethylene sheets and bamboo shafts at sprawling camps in Cox’s Bazar, some 300 kilometres south of the capital.

Nearly 750,000 of them crossed the border after Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched a crackdown on the minority group in August 2017.