YANGON, Myanmar – An official says a fire at a camp in western Myanmar housing members of the country's persecuted Rohingya minority has burned down, leaving 440 families homeless.
Rakhine state Department of Social Relief official Cho Cho Win said 49 bamboo shelters, each containing eight rooms, burned down Tuesday morning at the Baw Du Pa 2 camp north of the state capital, Sittwe. He said no deaths have been reported.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
United Nations statistics last December gave the camp's population as 6,917. It said 58 camps in Rakhine housed more than 145,000 people, mostly Muslim Rohingya who lost or fled their homes in 2013 due to communal clashes with Rakhine Buddhists.