In recent days, a mortar shell exploded in Bangladeshi territory near the border, killing a 17-year-old boy. The Burmese ambassador was summoned for the fourth time in less than a month. According to experts, the coup junta wants to involve Dhaka in the fight against the rebels.
Dhaka () – A mortar shell from Myanmar killed a 17-year-old Rohingya, wounding five others. The explosion took place on the edge of the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, near the border between the cities of Tombru (Myanmar) and Bandarban (Bangladesh). This is a new episode of violence in the Burmese civil war that splashes Bangladesh. For almost two months, the fighting between the Burmese coup junta and the Arakan Army has continued, the local ethnic militia of the Rakhine state. The two sides had signed a truce in November 2020, but after the coup by the Burmese army in February 2021, a civil war broke out that has spread to all regions of Myanmar.
The Bangladeshi government is ruling out the option of deploying troops to the border, but has instructed the Border and Coast Guard to recruit new personnel if necessary. Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan declared that Bangladesh does not want war: “We will continue efforts to find a peaceful solution. If we fail, we will turn to the United Nations.”
On September 14, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stated that her country had given refuge to the Rohingya for humanitarian reasons, but now they were becoming a “burden”. The Cox’s Bazar refugee camp already hosts more than a million refugees, the vast majority of whom arrived after the Burmese army’s persecution of the Rohingya (a Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar) in 2017. In recent weeks, hundreds of people have They have concentrated on the border and hope to cross the Naf River to reach Bangladesh. According to figures from the Border Guard, from January to July this year, the Bangladesh Security Forces turned away 480 Burmese seeking refuge.
Myanmar Ambassador Aung Kyaw Moe was summoned yesterday –for the fourth time in less than a month– by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh. The diplomat claims that it was the Arakan Army rebels who fired the mortar shells because they want to destabilize bilateral relations.
According to the president of the Institute of Peace and Security Studies, Major General Muniruzzaman, the Burmese conflict will become of low intensity once border tensions are overcome. Fighting between the Arakan and Burmese armies has not only spread to the Bangladeshi territories, but airspace violations have also occurred in recent months. According to the expert, it seems that the coup junta wants to involve Bangladesh in the confrontations against the Arakan Army.
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