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Fire kills 3 in market near Rohingya camp

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The deadly market fire broke out early on Friday and took several hours to bring under control.
Camera IconThe deadly market fire broke out early on Friday and took several hours to bring under control. Credit: AP

A fire has destroyed more than 20 shops in a makeshift market near a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh, killing at least three people.

Local police chief Ahmed Sanjur Morshed said they recovered the bodies from the debris after it took firefighters several hours to bring the blaze under control.

The fire broke out early on Friday when residents of the sprawling Kutupalong camp for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees were asleep.

Sayedul Mustafa, the owner of a shop, confirmed the dead were his staff.

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Emdadul Haque, an official with the Fire Service and Civil Defence, said they had to struggle for more than three hours to take the fire under control.

He said several others were injured.

It was not clear how the fire began. It came after another devastating fire last month in the camp left 15 people dead, 560 others hurt and about 45,000 homeless.

Aid agencies and the government said they started rebuilding the shelters after the massive fire last month.

Bangladesh has sheltered more than a million Rohingya Muslims, the vast majority having fled Myanmar in 2017 in a major crackdown by that country's military.

The UN has said the crackdown had a genocidal intent, a charge Myanmar rejects.

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