46 more Myanmar border forces seek refuge in Bangladesh as clashes continue

By SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) — Nearly four dozen more Myanmar border police have sought refuge in Bangladesh from escalating conflict between their country's military government and rebel fighters, Bangladesh said on Wednesday.

With the 46 more border officers who fled the fighting along Myanmar's western border, according to a brief note by Border Guard Bangladesh, the total number rose to 260, including members of the country's military.

Bangladesh is working with Myanmar to send the border guards back in a second phase of returns after 330 border police, soldiers, customs officers, and other government officials and their family members were repatriated on Feb. 15 this year.

Earlier on Sunday, the country's Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told reporters in the capital Dhaka that the government was working to send back the remaining Myanmar troops who had taken refuge in Bangladesh.

Myanmar proposed they be sent back via water routes, the minister said.

Myanmar border police began fleeing to Bangladesh in early February this year as conflict in the Southeast Asian nation escalated, also causing a fresh influx of persecuted Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh's southeastern Cox's Bazar district.

Several hundred Rohingya gathered along the border in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, with some crossing the border and moving to refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, where some 1.2 million Muslims were already living since fleeing a crackdown by Myanmar's junta in August 2017.

The border region continues to experience heavy fighting, with reports of gunfire and shelling as concerns rise over escalating casualties.