Abu Taher & Tanzim Anwar

DHAKA/COX’S BAZAR, Feb 6, 2024 (BSS) – Bangladesh today summoned the Myanmar envoy to the foreign ministry over escalated violence on the other side of the border that overnight killed two people in Cox’s Bazar and caused fresh influx of more 116 military and paramilitary Burmese troops.

Officials said Myanmar ambassador in Dhaka Aung Kyaw Moe was summoned to the ministry over the death of two in Bangladesh by a mortar shell on Monday and related developments on the border area.

 “Myanmar wing director general of the foreign ministry Miah Md Mainul Kabir strongly protested the incidents of violence in Rakhine state because of its spillover effect on Bangladesh, particularly the deaths of two people in Cox’s Bazar” a foreign ministry spokesman said.

 Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud later said a strong note of protest was handed over to the envoy in view of the casualties and disturbances in Bangladesh caused by the armed conflicts on the Myanmar side of the border.

 “We told him, this is completely unacceptable,” Mahmud said while officials added the envoy assured Dhaka of conveying his government the Bangladesh protest.

 Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), meanwhile, said 116 Myanmar troops this morning fled their posts and battlegrounds and crossed into Bangladesh and this time their regular army soldiers also took refuge in Cox’s Bazar alongside paramilitary Border Guard Police (BGP) and some other government agencies.

 “Against the backdrop of armed conflict inside Myanmar, so far 229 personnel of their Border Guard Police (BGP), regular soldiers, immigration officials, policemen and members of other agencies entered Bangladesh,” BGB spokesman Shariful Islam said.

 He said they were disarmed and kept in safe custody while another official at the scene said an identification process was underway to ascertain in details the identifies of the military troops and paramilitary soldiers.

 BGB officials and local public representatives at the troubled scene , meanwhile, said the 116 Myanmar soldiers and other officials crossed the border through the Rahamatbil frontier of Ukhia upazila this morning as deadly armed conflict visibly escalated further on the other side of the border between the government troops and rebel Arakan Army insurgents.

 The officials and witnesses said several of the 116 soldiers arrived with bullet wounds like their 113 predecessors and some were sent to different hospitals including Chattogram Medical College Hospital for treatment.

 Cox’s Bazar’s deputy commissioner Mohammad Shaheen Imran, meanwhile, said three frontier upazilas of Naikhangchhari, Teknaf and Ukhia were asked to prepare for evacuating people to safety in view of the escalated conflicts.

 “The upazila administrations have been asked to launch the evacuation considering the field situation,” he said but witnesses informed that many residents by now left their homes at several villagers to safer places as the sound of constant fighting on the other side of the border continued.

 Reports from the fierce fighting continues in Myanmar’s Rakhine state between the army and the armed group Arakan Army while the later is believed to have captured the government military and other installations in bordering areas.