A fresh round of tension has intensified along the border after a Bangladeshi citizen was hit by a bullet due to a fierce fighting between the Myanmar Army and rebel group Arakan Army in Rakhine state.
Continuous loud reports of gun were heard from Naikhongchhari in Bandarban, adjacent to Myanmar border.
Amid a growing tension in Myanmar, at least 29 Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) fled to Bangladesh and took refuge on Monday.
BGP members fled to Bangladesh between pillar 45 and 46 of the border at Jamchari area of Naikhongchhari upazila.
Later they were taken into the Bangladesh Border Guard’s (BGB) custody.
Md Shariful Islam, Public Relations Officer of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), confirmed the matter to the media.
He said some 29 BGP members from Angthapaya Camp of Myanmar took shelter at Jamchari Border Out Post (BOP) in Bangladesh after trespassing on the soil of Bangladesh.
Locals said these BGP members intruded into Bangladesh around 12:00 pm through the Jamchari border.
The Jamchari border area, under Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Battalion 11 in Naikhongchhari, is a very remote one. The area is about 20-kilometre away from Naikhongchhari upazila headquarter.
The BGB members surrounded the BGP members in the tea garden.
“Upon receiving information, several BGB teams reached the spot and initiated the process of disarming the BGP personnel,” said Shariful Islam. Mohammad Zakaria, Upazila Nirbahi Officer of Naikhongchhari, said, “Locals informed us that these 29 BGP members fled to Bangladesh after being chased by the Arakan Army.”
Nurul Abser, chairman of Naikhongchhari Sadar union parishad, said that he learnt from the locals that 29 BGP members became separated during the fierce war and hid in the no man’s land on the Ashartali-Jamchari border of Naikhongchhari Sadar.
They (BGP) members took refuge in Bangladesh after facing shortage of food on the no man’s land.
Later, BGB members disarmed them and took them into custody, he said.
About the bullet injury of a Bangladeshi citizen, the chairman said when people gathered near the Jamchari Mosque at 4:00pm, a bullet came from Myanmar and hit Ward No. 8 member Saber Ahmad in the waist.
He was sent to Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital for advanced treatment, the chairman said. He also said the firing is still going on inside Myanmar.
Rebel factions in the Arakan state have been engaged in clashes with Myanmar’s military junta since Saturday (3 February), primarily over the control of a border camp. Continuous gunfire, mortar shells, and rocket explosions marked the ongoing conflict.
Earlier, on February 15, a total of 330 Myanmar nationals, who crossed the border and took shelter in Bangladesh to escape the fighting in Myanmar, were sent back to their country.
They included 302 BGP members, four BGP family members, two army personnel, 18 immigration members, and four civilians.
The Myanmar nationals started fleeing to Bangladesh on February 4 as the ongoing fighting between the Myanmar junta and the Arakan Army escalated across the border at Bandarban and Cox's Bazar.
At least 68 -- of whom 15 were bullet-hit – took refuge in Bandarban on February 4, and the rest entered on different dates until February 7.
Amid the ongoing fighting between the Myanmar junta force and rebel Arakan Army along the bordering areas, a Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya man were killed when a mortar shell fired from Myanmar exploded in Bandarban's Ghumdhum union.
The Arakan Army, a well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
Arakan Army along with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army — are operating together under the name of the Three Brotherhood Alliance. It launched a coordinated attack on Myanmar Junta on October 27 in 2023 in the northern Shan state along the border with China.
Currently, Bangladesh is hosting 12 lakh Rohingyas in 33 shelter camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf. Of them, 7 lakh came from Rakhine State after August 25, 2017. Even in six years of the Rohingya influx, not a single Rohingya could be sent back to Myanmar. Although repatriation was attempted twice before, it failed.
