The death toll from a massive fire that ripped through a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh has risen to at least 15, with another 400 people missing, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
The UNHCR says Monday's fire has left more than 550 people injured and about 45,000 displaced.
"It is massive, it is devastating," said UNHCR's Johannes Van der Klaauw, who joined a Geneva briefing virtually from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Bangladeshi officials are investigating the cause of the fire as officials, aid workers and families sift through the debris looking for further victims.
The fire ripped through the Balukhali camp near the south-eastern town of Cox's Bazar, burning through thousands of shanties as people scrambled to save their possessions.
Reuters
)"Everything has gone. Thousands are without homes," said Aman Ullah, a Rohingya refugee from the Balukhali camp.
"The fire was brought under control after six hours but some parts of the camp could be seen smoking all night long."
Police have so far confirmed seven deaths.
"The cause of the fire is still unknown" and authorities were investigating the matter, Zakir Hossain Khan, a senior police official said by telephone from the camps.
Sanjeev Kafley, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' delegation head in Bangladesh, said more than 17,000 shelters had been destroyed and tens of thousands of people displaced.
More than 1,000 Red Cross staff and volunteers worked with fire services to extinguish the blaze, spread over four sections of the camp containing roughly 124,000 people, Mr Kafley said.
That represents around one-tenth of an estimated 1 million Rohingya refugees in the area.
Reuters
)"I have been in Cox's Bazar for three-and-a-half years and have never seen such a fire," he said.
Barbed wire hampers rescue efforts
Some witnesses said that barbed wire fencing around the camp trapped many people, hurting some and leading international humanitarian agencies to call for its removal.
Humanitarian organisation Refugees International, which estimated 50,000 people had been displaced, said the extent of the damage may not be known for some time.
Reuters: Ro Yassin Abdumonab
)John Quinley of Fortify Rights, a rights organisation working with the Rohingya people, said he had heard similar reports, adding the fences had hampered the distribution of humanitarian aid and vital services at the camps in the past.
"The government must remove the fences and protect refugees," Mr Quinley said. "There have now been a number of large fires in the camps including a large fire in January this year.
"The authorities must do a proper investigation into the cause of the fires."
The vast majority of the people in the camps fled Myanmar in 2017 amid a military-led crackdown on the Rohingya that UN investigators said was executed with "genocidal intent", charges Myanmar denies.
Reuters/ABC
