Bangladesh summons Myanmar’s envoy over cross-border killings

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) – Bangladesh summoned Myanmar’s top envoy in Dhaka concerning the killing of two people by mortar shells fired from across the border amid armed fighting between the regime and rebel groups.

The Foreign Ministry summoned U. Aung Kyaw Moe to strongly protest the killings and events that took place on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.

A Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya man were killed on Monday when a mortar shell fired from Myanmar fell on the Ghumdhum border in the southeastern Bandarban district of Bangladesh.

Several Bangladeshis were injured in live bullets fired from Myanmar last week while thousands left border villages with intensifying clashes along the Myanmar border.

​​​​​​​“The killings are unexpected,” Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told reporters at a news conference after issuing the protest. “We have lodged a strong protest.”

Meanwhile, 264 members of border guard police, military, immigration personnel, police and other agencies intruded into Bangladesh in the ongoing conflict inside Myanmar, said the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) in a statement.

Of the total, 149 crossed the border on Tuesday. The BGB disarmed them and took them to safety.

Talks are underway to send the Myanmar soldiers back through the waterway who crossed the border for refuge, Mahmud added.

Last month, 276 Burmese soldiers from Myanmar sought refuge in India’s northeastern state of Mizoram.

The new reports of Rohingya as well as Burmese security personnel fleeing Myanmar come as at least three ethnic armed groups, known as the Brotherhood Alliance, have been fighting the military junta regime for control of northern Myanmar since late October.

The ongoing chaos has particularly affected Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim community. Described as “the most persecuted minority” in the world by the UN, the Rohingya fled Myanmar in droves in 2017, to seek refuge in Bangladesh after a state-sponsored genocide unleashed against them. Displaced Rohingya communities continue to live in squalor, insecurity and misery both within and outside Myanmar, as the ruling military junta refuses citizenship or repatriation to the Rohingya Muslims.