This photo taken on February 4, 2024 shows a group of troops who fled Myanmar conflicts seeking refuge at a camp of Border Guard Bangladesh in Tumbru area of Naikhyangchari in Bangladesh. – Collected photo.
The number of Myanmar troops fleeing conflicts to Bangladesh to seek shelter crossing the hilly Bandarban border has risen to 95 until Monday morning, according to the media wing of the Border Guard Bangladesh headquarters in Dhaka.
The troops crossed the border with arms and ammunition amid a barrage of firing in Rakhine State.
BGB officials said that they were witnessing heavy firing along the bordering Tumbru area in Naikhyangchari.
On Sunday, at least 58 members of the Myanmar army and the Border Guard Police, both in uniforms or plain clothes, crossed the border between 8:00am and 7:00pm with arms and ammunition without hoisting any white flag or raising their hands, witnesses and BGB officials said.
About the entry of the Myanmar force to Bangladesh, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan told journalists on Sunday that they believed that they would repatriate those troops soon.
‘I am right on the border as heavy firing continues,’ a senior BGB commander said at about 6:00pm on Sunday from Naikhyangchari. Another commander said at 8:40pm on the day that sporadic firing continued, triggering spillover effects and the security in the bordering region was intensified.
One of the senior BGB officials said that they had disarmed the Myanmar soldiers and taken them into their custody as ‘intruders.’
‘We will take action in this regard after getting instructions from the high-up,’ the BGB official said, adding, ‘We are in continuous contact with the police and civil administration.’
Many of them were injured and rushed to nearby hospitals.
Doctors Without Borders head of mission in Bangladesh, Antonino Caradonna, said on Sunday that their Kutupalong Hospital in Cox’s Bazar received a large number of patients following fighting in Myanmar.
Panic gripped people living in the remote villages of Naikhyangchari amidst continuous heavy firing and mortar shelling across the border in Myanmar started at about 2:00am on Sunday and spotted artillery shells in the border in the morning.
Unofficial footage showed that Myanmar border troops were coming to Bangladesh with their weapons.
Thailand-based The Irrawaddy news portal reported that the ethnic Arkan Army seized Myanmar military battalion base amid an escalating offensive in Rakhine State on January 30. It also reported on February 1 that the Arkan Army was targeting the remaining two military bases and other junta outposts in the township.
The Arkan Army is a member of the Brotherhood Alliance, which also includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta’ang National Liberation Army, according to the report.
Since launching ‘Operation 1027’ on October 27, 2023, the ethnic alliance has seized most of northern Shan State including some 20 towns and vital trade routes with China, said the report.
The alliance halted its offensive in the second week of January after agreeing to a China-brokered ceasefire deal with the military regime.
The Arkan Army has, however, been conducting a large-scale offensive across northern Rakhine and Paletwa in neighbouring Chin State since November 13, 2023.
John Quinley, director at Bangkok-based Fortify Rights, said the fighting resulted in reports of some Myanmar border guard forces crossing into Bangladesh amid conflict.
Fighting has increased in Rakhine State since November 2023 between the Arakan Army and the Myanmar junta, he said.
All those involved must not indiscriminately attack civilians and provide humanitarian assistance and protection for those caught in the middle, he added.
Bangladesh Sangbadh Sangstha, the state-owned news agency, reported on Sunday that road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader, also the ruling Awami League general secretary, expressed concerns over the situation as it was affecting Bangladesh frontlines.
He sought Chinese ‘intervention’ to deescalate the conflict in view of Beijing’s close contacts with ‘Burmese authorities’.
Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar stretches 271.0 kilometres from the tri-point with India in the north, to the Bay of Bengal in the south.
Many Myanmar troops reportedly fled the conflict and took refuge in India recently.
New Age
