Dhaka, Feb 4 (EFE).- At least 58 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP) crossed the border and sought refuge in Bangladesh on Sunday amid heavy fighting between Myanmar forces and rebels, authorities said.
Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) spokesperson Shariful Islam confirmed the figure without providing further details.
At least 10 of the Myanmar nationals who entered Bangladesh sustained injuries from gunfire, Ghum Dhum police outpost in-charge Mahfuzur Rahman said, Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star reported.
Saikat Shahin, the police superintendent of the bordering Banadarban district, where Ghum Dhum is located, told EFE that the injured Myanmar nationals who entered Bangladesh might include some members of rebel groups who were fighting with the Myanmar forces.
“They managed to reach hospitals (in Bangladesh) in public ambulances,” Shahin told EFE.
Bandarban district’s administrative head, Shah Mujahid Uddin, told EFE that at least one Bangladeshi national was also injured as some shells fired in Myanmar reached Bangladesh.
Naikhangchari sub-district’s administrative chief, Shantanu Das, said that gunshots were heard in the areas sporadically as fighting continued across the border throughout the day.
Bangladesh authorities suspended classes in at least five schools in Naikhangchari amid heavy shelling on the Myanmar side, Das said.
He added that many villagers from bordering areas left their homes and took shelter in the houses of their relatives in safer places, but the authorities did not relocate anyone officially.
“We don’t know how long the war in Myanmar will last. We will not allow anyone to cross our borders. We have given this instruction to the BGB,” Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters in Dhaka.
Fighting has been raging between the rebel Arakan Army and Myanmar forces in Myanmar’s Rakhine state for weeks.
The rebel group, as part of the Brotherhood Alliance, launched a joint offensive, code-named ‘Operation 1027,’ against the Myanmar Army on Oct. 27, though the region near the Bangladesh border has remained volatile for years.
Bangladesh is home to over a million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar, mostly after a crackdown by the Myanmar military in August 2017.
A military coup on Feb.1, 2021 plunged Myanmar into a deep political, social and economic crisis and unleashed a spiral of violence with new civilian militias that have exacerbated the guerrilla war that the country has been experiencing for decades. EFE
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