7,000 displaced Rohingya Muslim refugees have been made homeless yet again after a fire tore through their camp in southeastern Bangladesh, according to the UN refugee agency.
Fire swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in southeastern Bangladesh in the early hours of Sunday, destroying about 800 shelters and rendering thousands homeless, officials said.
Fire service officials and Rohingya volunteers brought the blaze under control around three hours after it hit Camp 5 in Cox's Bazar, a border district with Myanmar, shortly before 1 a.m. (1900 GMT).
Apart from homes, several other facilities like learning centres were also gutted, Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner in Cox's Bazar, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said, adding that there were no casualties.
UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said nearly 7,000 have been made homeless by the blaze and around 120 facilities, including mosques and healthcare centres were damaged.
Nearly a million members of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in crammed, bamboo-and-plastic camps in Bangladesh's border district of Cox's Bazar, most of them having fled a military crackdown in 2017.
Last year about 12,000 were left homeless after nearly 2,800 shelters and more than 90 facilities including hospitals and learning centres were destroyed in a fire. An investigating panel set up by the panel called it a "planned act of sabotage".
