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Bangladesh plans new camp for Myanmar refugees

DHAKA, June 20 (Reuters) - Bangladesh plans to set up a camp for 9,500 Muslim refugees from Myanmar, an official said on Wednesday, the third such shelter since they started arriving in the country more than a decade ago.

The new camp will be located at Leda, near the Myanmar border, 500 km (312 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka.

Most of the refugees, known as Rohingya Muslims, crossed into Bangladesh from Myanmar's western state of Arakan over the past several years, alleging ethnic persecution in the Buddhist dominated country.

"The new camp will be in operation from early August," Ahmad Hossain Khan, a senior official of Disaster Management and Relief Ministry, said.

The refugees have been living in sub-human conditions without sanitation and health care, officials said.

The camp will be in addition to two existing camps housing some 21,000 refugees for more than a decade.

They are the remnants of some 250,000 Rohingya refugees who fled Arakan in early 1992 to escape persecution by the military government.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme and the government of Bangladesh jointly look after the refugees.