At least 179 personnel from Myanmar security forces crossed the border near Naikhyangchari in Bandarban on Monday and sought shelter in Bangladesh amid their ongoing conflict with the ethnic rebel group Arakan Army.
Initially, 29 personnel with camouflage and civil dress arrived in the daytime, and after dark, 150 others arrived, officials in Border Guard Bangladesh and Bandarban district administration said.
‘Now our security forces are disarming them,’ said Bandarban district deputy commission Shah Mujahid Uddin.
Earlier, a total of 330 troops and civilians fled fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine State to enter Bangladesh between February 4 and 10, while the Border Guard Bangladesh rejected the entries of 75 Rohingya who wanted shelter around the same time.
A ship from Myanmar took back Myanmar troops and civilian officials on February 15.
After sending them back, BGB director general Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui told the media that no more troops would be allowed to cross the border.
Different government authorities said that Bangladesh would also not allow any more Rohingya people here.
More than 700,000 Rohingya fled the Myanmar military’s crimes against humanity and acts of genocide in 2017. They joined thousands of Rohingya people already leaving Bangladesh, taking the number of Rohingyas here to over a million.
Two attempts to repatriate the Rohingyas failed, as they refused to return with out a guarantee of safety and citizenship.
An estimated 600,000 Rohingya are still believed to remain in Rakhine State, confined to squalid camps and villages under a system of apartheid.
Shayna Bauchner, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, noted in their latest report published on February 9 that in late January, between 12 and 24 Rohingya civilians were killed in Myanmar, while as many as 100 more may have been injured.
People living in Bangladesh villages living along the border have reported frequent sounds of gunfire in recent weeks.
BGB officials confirmed that 29 members of the Angthapaya Border Guard Police Camp came through the border area of Jamchari union and took shelter with Bangladesh Border Guard Battalion 11.
‘We are verifying their identities and documenting their details,’ said a senior BGB official.
The AA warned all regime forces in Rakhine to raise the white flag or face death, Thailand-based news portal The Irrawaddy reported on Monday.
The report, quoting AA, said that the rebel forces chased and attacked fleeing regime forces during their seizure of a military division headquarters in Kyauktaw Township and the junta’s 9th Central Military Training School in Minbya Township. It also claimed to have captured a number of fleeing regime forces.
