Members of Border Guard Bangladesh have sent back a trawler carrying 31 Rohingya people and two members of Myanmar Border Guard Police after they entered St Martins Island from Myanmar early Friday.
St Martin union parishad chairman Mujibur Rahman said that the trawler carried these passengers from Myanmar›s Maungdaw area, a town in Rakhine State.
They were sent back on Friday afternoon by the BGB members, the chairman said.
He added that the passengers reported coming to the island because their trawler was not functional and the BGP members were armed.
Subedar Sanwar Hossain, the in-charge of the BGB petrol team in Saint Martin Island, confirmed that 33 individuals, including women and children, arrived on the trawler.
An on-duty member later confirmed that Rohingyas returned to Myanmar on Friday afternoon, without providing details.
Nurul Amin, a resident of the island and a beach worker for the district administration, said that he learned that due to the turbulent situation in the Maungdaw area, people from there have crossed the sea in several trawlers, with one of them arriving at Saint Martin.
Boat communication between Saint Martin and Bangladesh’s mainland has remained suspended since June 6 due to safety concerns after a boat carrying election officials was shot at.
Cox’s Bazar district administration provided some emergency supplies to the island under special arrangements.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters at his office on June 20 that they had warned both the warring parties, the Myanmar Army and the ethnic group Arakan Army, that Bangladesh would retaliate if anyone fired into the country’s territory.
Asaduzzaman earlier reiterated that Bangladesh would not give shelter to any more Rohingyas as the country was already burdened with over one million Rohingyas, most of whom fled violence in Myanmar in 2017.
Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a press briefing in Geneva on May 24 that approximately 4,000 Rohingya fled to Rakhine on the Naf River near the border with Bangladesh, seeking protection.
‘We are receiving frightening and disturbing reports from northern Rakhine State in Myanmar of the impacts of the conflict on civilian lives and property,’ Throssell said.
On February 15 and April 25, Bangladesh repatriated 330 and 228 members of Myanmar›s border guards, army, and customs officials, respectively, who had entered Bangladesh through various borders, including Teknaf and Naikhyangchari, in Cox’s Bazar.
On June 9, a total of 134 members of the BGP and army were sent back to Myanmar.
A Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya man were killed by a shell fired from Myanmar on February 5, while several others sustained injuries from a recent shellfire, prompting Bangladeshis to relocate some villagers from bordering areas.
Bangladeshi fisherman Hossain Ali, 48, who was injured by a bullet allegedly fired by the Myanmar armed group Arakan Army while fishing in the river Naf, died on May 28 while undergoing treatment at Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
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