COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh - A massive fire at a crammed camp for Rohingya Muslims in southern Bangladesh left thousands of the refugees homeless Sunday, a fire official and the United Nations said.
Bangladesh authorities are investigating the cause of a massive fire in a Rohingya refugee camp which has left 12,000 people without shelter.
No casualties have been reported, but the fire on Sunday razed 2,000 shelters after spreading quickly through gas cylinders in kitchens, officials said.
Police are investigating if the fire was an act of sabotage. One man has been detained, local media reported.
The camp in the south-east is believed to be the world's largest refugee camp.
Most of its residents, Rohingya refugees, had fled persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.
On Monday, hundreds had returned to the Cox's Bazar area to see what they could salvage from the ruins.
The blaze had started at about 14:45 local time Sunday (08:45 GMT) and quickly tore through the bamboo-and-tarpaulin shelters, an official said.
"Some 2,000 shelters have been burnt, leaving about 12,000 forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals shelterless," Mijanur Rahman, Bangladesh's refugee commissioner, told AFP news agency.
The blaze was brought under control within three hours but at least 35 mosques and 21 learning centres for the refugees were also destroyed, he added.
Photos are now emerging that show the extent of the devastation.
Many of those who lived there can be seen picking through the charred area, where only metal struts and singed corrugated roofing remains.
Thick black clouds were seen rising above Camp 11, one of many in the border district where more than a million Rohingya refugees live.
It will be difficult to relocate the estimated 12,000 people affected by the fire - given the already overcrowded conditions in the "mega camp", said Hardin Lang from Refugees International.
Delivering basic services to those people in other parts of the camp would also be a challenge because many services - health clinics, schools - have been destroyed.
