Raging inferno: Thick, black smoke rising as the fire burns out of control while some refugees (BELOW) try to put out the fire with buckets of water at the Rohingya refugee camp in Balukhali in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. — Reuters/AP
A MASSIVE fire at a crammed camp for Rohingya in southern Bangladesh left thousands of the refugees homeless, a fire official and the United Nations said.
No casualties were reported at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar district, said Emdadul Haque, a fire service official.
The UNHCR in Bangladesh on Sunday tweeted that Rohingya volunteers responded to the fire with the agency and its partners.
More than one million Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar over decades, including about 740,000 who crossed the border starting in August 2017, when Myanmar launched a crackdown.
Last year, the United States said the oppression of Rohingya in Myanmar amounts to genocide after US authorities confirmed accounts of mass atrocities against civilians by the military in a campaign against the ethnic minority. — AP
