COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh — A fire broke out in a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Sunday, leaving thousands homeless, the United Nations said.
No casualties were immediately reported in the fire at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar district, said Emdadul Haque, a fire official.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said in a tweet that Rohingya volunteers were helping to put out the flames. He gave no further details.
More than a million Rohingya refugees have fled Bangladesh to Myanmar in recent decades, including some 740,000 who have crossed the border since August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched a brutal offensive.
Conditions in Myanmar have worsened since the military took over in 2021, and attempts to bring them back have failed.
Last year, the United States declared the crackdown on the Rohingya in Myanmar amounted to genocide after US authorities confirmed reports of mass atrocities committed against civilians by the military as part of of a systematic campaign against the ethnic minority. Rohingyas suffer intense discrimination in the Buddhist-majority country, and most lack nationality and many other rights.