Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire gutted parts of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

About 850,000 of\u00a0the persecuted Muslim minority\u00a0— many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in\u00a0Myanmar\u00a0that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent”\u00a0— live in a network of camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar.<\/p>\n

“About 1,200 houses were burnt in the fire,” said Kamran Hossain, a spokesman for the Armed Police Battalion, which heads security in the camp.<\/p>\n

The fire started at Camp 16 and raced through shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin, leaving more than 5,000 people homeless, he said.<\/p>\n

“The fire started at 4:40 pm (1040 GMT) and was brought under control at around 6:30 pm,” he told AFP.<\/p>\n

Abdur Rashid, 22, said the fire was so big that he ran for safety as his house and furniture were engulfed by the blaze.<\/p>\n

“Everything in my house was burnt. My baby and wife were out. There were a lot of things in the house,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I saved 30,000 taka (350 dollars) from working as a day labourer The money was burnt in the fire.<\/p>\n

“I am now under open sky. I lost my dream.”<\/p>\n

In March last year, 15 people died and about 50,000 were left homeless in Bangladesh after a huge fire destroyed Rohingya homes in the world’s biggest refugee settlement.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Yasin, 29, bemoaned the lack of fire safety equipment in the camps.<\/p>\n

“Fire occurs here frequently. There was no way we could put out the fire. There was no water. My home is burnt. Many documents, which I brought from Myanmar, are also burnt. And it is cold here,” he said.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh has been praised for taking in refugees who poured across the border from Myanmar, but has had little success finding them permanent homes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire gutted parts of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police said on Sunday. About 850,000 of\u00a0the persecuted Muslim minority\u00a0— many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in\u00a0Myanmar\u00a0that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent”\u00a0— live in a network of camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar. “About 1,200 houses were burnt in the fire,” said Kamran Hossain, a spokesman for the Armed Police Battalion, which heads security in the camp. The fire started at Camp 16 and raced through shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin, leaving more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[544,562],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-yeswecantv-news"],"yoast_head":"\n