As many as 264 Myanmar security forces have fled to Bangladesh amid clashes between the country’s military and the armed rebel group, Arakan Army.
A total of 264 Myanmar forces including BGP, army personnel and immigration officials have taken shelter in Bangladesh, said Shariful Islam, public relations officer (PRO) of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).
The Myanmar forces have entered Bangladesh through Tumbru border in Naikhangchhari upazila of Bandarban district with arms and ammunition.
The BGB disarmed them and took them to a safe shelter, he said.
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The BGB PRO said members of the BGP started taking shelter in Bangladesh since Sunday morning.
A Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya man were killed following an explosion of a mortar shell at a house in Jolpaitoli under Ghumdum union of Naikhongchhari upazila in Bandarban district on Monday.
Amid the ongoing unrest along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, academic activities of five government primary schools in Naikhangchhari upazila have been suspended.
The government has taken the decision considering the safety of the teachers and students. A notification was issued in this regard on Monday.
Meanwhile, Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, newly appointed director general of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), has said, “The border situation is now under control and we are trying to deal with the situation as humanely as possible while maintaining international relations.”
Until Monday night, 115 Myanmar forces had taken shelter in Bangladesh and 114 security personnel arrived till Tuesday morning while 35 more entered in the afternoon, he said.
Besides, 65 Rohingyas, who tried to enter the country by boats, were sent back, he said.
“No more Rohingya will be allowed,” said the BGB chief.
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Inspector General of Police (IGP) Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun, earlier today, detailed the collaborative efforts of Bangladesh Police, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and local administration to maintain law and order at the Ghumdhum border in Bandarban, following directives from the government.
The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government.
It is a member of the armed ethnic group alliance that recently gained strategic territory in Myanmar’s northeast. Along with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army — operating together under the name of the Three Brotherhood Alliance — it launched a coordinated offensive on October 27, 2023 in northern Shan state along the border with China.
That offensive has posed the greatest battlefield challenge to Myanmar’s military rulers since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. The alliance says it has seized more than 250 military outposts, five official border crossings and a major city near the Chinese border, along with several important towns, according to an AP report.
Rakhine is where a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 drove about 740,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh. Rakhine is also known by its older name of Arakan.