A massive fire has torn through a crammed refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh.

Local authorities say Sunday's blaze in the southern district of Cox's Bazar gutted 2,000 huts, leaving 12,000 people homeless. No casualties were reported. Local media say the cause of the fire is unclear.

A female refugee said she had taken her mother to see a doctor, and when she came back "everything was on fire."

"We couldn't save any of our belongings," she said.

The UN Migration Agency is assessing victims' needs. Their lives were hard enough before the fire.

An estimated 1 million Rohingya stay in camps in Cox's Bazar. More than 700,000 crossed the border from Myanmar in 2017, when the military launched brutal crackdowns against them after police outposts were attacked.

The camps are densely populated with poor sanitation. They are also prone to blazes like the latest one. A huge fire two years ago killed at least 15 people and destroyed 10,000 homes.

Two years after the military coup in Myanmar, the Rohingya see no prospect of returning.