Bangladesh again warns Myanmar over cross-border firing

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Bangladesh has again warned Myanmar against firing inside Bangladesh’s territory amid the ongoing month-long heavy gunfight inside Myanmar.

On September 9, a bullet from an AK-47 rifle fell 229 meters inside Bangladesh across the Tambru border in the country’s southeastern district of Bandarban, according to official sources.

Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said that his country protests against Myanmar’s mortar shells and bullets crossing Bangladesh’s border.

“Our Foreign Ministry has already warned Myanmar’s envoy over the situation,” Khan said in a statement.

The minister added that the Bangladeshi border force has also sent a protest note to Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP).

On September 4, Bangladesh summoned Myanmar’s ambassador to Dhaka for the third time in two weeks in protest against the growing border tension and violation of the Bangladeshi airspace.

Two mortar shells fired by Myanmar forces landed inside Bangladesh on September 3.

“We have already informed the concerned authorities about it. Our border force, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), is also on alert,” Deputy Commissioner of Bandarban district, Yasmin Parvin Tibriji said.

Heavy gun battle in Myanmar areas near the border with Bangladesh has been going on for more than a month, raising tensions between the two South Asian neighboring countries and fear among the people living in the border area.

Gunfights between the Myanmar army and the Arakan Army fighters have intensified recently.

Bangladesh currently hosts over 1.2 million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar’s Rakhine State following a brutally genocidal military crackdown by the Myanmar army against Muslim ethnic Rohingyas in August 2017.