A NEWPORT MP has spoken about a "heartbreaking and overwhelming" experience of visiting a refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Paul Flynn was among a group of MPs who visited a camp where hundreds of thousands of Myanmar's ethnic Muslim minority, the Rohingya, are living since fleeing violence in their home country.

The Labour MP said witnessing the suffering of refugees in the camp on the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar, previously Burma, was "heartbreaking and overwhelming".

"The sight of hundreds of thousands of persecuted people crammed into a tiny area was the foulest example of the abuse of defenceless people I have ever seen," he said.

"From a high viewpoint the camp of primitive huts and shelters stretches over the hills as far as the eye can see.

"The equivalent of the entire population of Manchester are struggle to survive without enough food, no sewerage system, contaminated water and no laws or health service.

"Diseases, disorder and violence are ever-present threats."

Mr Flynn said "the world must not ignore this humanitarian disaster".

"We all returned horrified and angry," he said.

"We will constantly raise the scale of the tragedies in Parliament over the next few months.

"I hope we can convince our colleagues of paramount need for world generosity and intelligent political interventions to ease the suffering of the 600,000 persecuted Rohinga people ethnically cleansed from their homes.

"This man-made hell on earth cannot be allowed to continue and grow."

More than half a million people have fled the Rohingya region since the latest outbreak of violence in August.