In response to reports of intense gunfights between government forces and rebel resistance fighters, at least 58 members of Myanmar’s paramilitary Border Guard Police (BGP) fled the junta-run nation and sought refuge in Bangladesh, officials announced here on Sunday.
Early on Sunday morning, the soldiers crossed the Tambru border and sought refuge with the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB).
The official, who preferred anonymity, said the paramilitary soldiers were kept under their counterpart Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) custody in southeastern Cox’s Bazar bordering Myanmar’s Rakhine state while the weapons they carried were deposited in BGB cache.
The official said many of the soldiers came to Bangladesh territory in combat uniforms and weapons while others were in their plainclothes leaving their arms back home.
“The BGB informed the development to their Myanmar counterparts,” said the official.
Dhaka, meanwhile, expressing concern over the skirmishes in its border areas with Myanmar, said the violence was affecting Bangladesh’s frontlines.
Road Transport Minister and Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader sought Chinese intervention to de-escalate the conflict given Beijing’s close contacts with Burmese authorities.
“The internal war is their (Myanmar’s) domestic concern. But when the sound of gunfights is heard at the border, naturally it creates panic in the public mind. We, therefore, expect Beijing’s intervention,” Quader told the media after he met with the Chinese envoy.
14 BGP members reportedly crossed the border through the Ghumdhum border in the early hours of the morning, according to officials. A BGB spokeswoman in Dhaka then ordered media to wait for a media briefing on the development.
However, no formal briefing took place until Sunday night.
Five schools in the problematic border district of Bandarban were closed for security reasons due to concerns that mortar shells or stray gunfire from ongoing gunfights on the other side of the border would find their way into Bangladesh.
The BGB advised locals to stay inside or move around carefully.
Reports from across the border indicated that rebel fighters were being targeted by army helicopters, raising fears of significant losses, according to officials.
The sounds of gunfire on the Myanmar side of the border on Saturday night and Sunday, according to local Union Parishad members and inhabitants in frontier villages, alarmed the locals.
(With agency inputs)
Via Firstpost World Latest News https://ift.tt/razeo4b
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