- More than 100 members of the Burma Border Guard Police have fled their post and crossed the Bangladesh border to seek refuge from ethnic rebels.
- Rebel groups, including the Arakan Army and its parent organization Three Brothers Alliance, have made significant progress against Burma’s military junta since banding together last year.
- Burma has been under military rule since the overthrow of democratically elected State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi three years ago.
More than 100 members of the Burma Border Guard have fled their posts and taken refuge in Bangladesh to escape fighting between Burmese security forces and ethnic minority forces, Bangladeshi border officials said on Monday.
This is the first time that Burmese troops have been found to have fled to Bangladesh since Burma’s ethnic minority military coalition launched an offensive against the military government late last year.
Bangladesh Border Guard spokesman Shariful Islam said the Burmese army had infiltrated the country over the past two days while fighting with the Arakan Army in Burma’s Rakhine state, which borders Bangladesh.
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He said 103 troops entered through the Thomburu border in Bandarban district.
“They were disarmed and taken to a safe location,” he said.
Burma’s military government had no immediate comment.
Also on Monday, Bangladeshi media reported that a house in Bandarban was attacked and two people, a Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya refugee, were killed by shelling from Burma.
Burmese border guards are seen fleeing the country during clashes with ethnic rebels in Gumdum, Bandarban, Bangladesh, on Monday, February 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Shafiqur Rahman)
Bangladeshi Law Minister Anisul Huq told parliament that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had instructed the military and paramilitary border guards to act with patience in dealing with cross-border tensions.
“Bangladesh is closely monitoring the situation and measures will be taken,” Bangladesh news agency United News quoted him as saying.
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud said on Monday that Burma’s Ambassador Aung Kyaw Moe and Deputy Foreign Minister Lwin Oo had informed the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they would take back troops sheltered in Bangladesh.
The ministry also sent a “verbal memo” to the Burmese envoy in Dhaka, protesting against bullets and mortar shells landing in Bangladesh from Burma.
The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority, which seeks autonomy from Burma’s central government. It has been attacking army outposts in the western part of the state since November.
It is part of an alliance of ethnic minority forces that launched an offensive in October and captured strategic territory in northeastern Burma, which borders China. Its success is seen as a major defeat for the junta, which seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and is currently embroiled in a widespread civil war.
The alliance, known as the Three Brothers Alliance, said in a statement on Monday that the Arakan Army attacked two border outposts in Maungdaw district in Rakhine state and captured one of them on Sunday.
Arakan Army spokesman Kayin Tuka said fighting continued at the second outpost on Monday.
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Bangladesh shares a 268-mile border with Burma and hosts more than 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees, many of whom were killed in August 2017 by the military following brutal attacks on Rohingya by rebels. They have been fleeing Buddhist-majority Burma since August 2017, when a “clearance operation” began. .
