Nearly all of Myanmar’s border guards flee to Bangladesh amid clashes with rebels
At least 95 Myanmar border guards, some of them injured, have fled to Bangladesh in recent days as fighting between Myanmar rebel forces and the junta regime intensified, Bangladeshi officials told Reuters on Monday.
Since staging a coup against an elected government in 2021, the junta is facing its greatest challenge, trying to contain a bloody rebellion that has seen the allying and coordination of several anti-junta military groups that have been in capable of militarily opposing the current government.
In Bangladesh they heard widespread shooting coming from across the border. The shots were heard in the tourist district of Cox's Bazar where one million refugees from the Rohingya Muslim minority from the former Burma now live, persecuted by the government since 2017.
Members of the Myanmar Border Police (BGP) entered Bangladesh with their weapons and 15 of them had bullet wounds when they crossed the border, Shariful Islam, a spokesperson for the Bangladesh Border Guard, said on Monday, adding that the injured received treatment in several hospitals.
BGP troops may be hosted in nearby Bandarban district before being sent back to Myanmar, said Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh's commissioner for refugee relief and repatriation based in Cox's Bazar.
“I have been asked whether the BGP can be safely housed in the transit camps built in Bandarban for the repatriation of Rohingya refugees. The fields are empty,” Rahman said. Which is, somewhat ironic, because in the camps built for the
Shells and mortars from across the border with Myanmar landed on Bangladeshi territory on Monday, killing at least two people, a government official in Cox's Bazar said.
Bangladesh Myanmar border
“A Bangladeshi woman and a Rohingya were killed and a child was injured near the border by a mortar shell fired from Myanmar,” said Mohammad Shamsud Douza, the Bangladesh government's deputy official in charge of refugees.
Many residents on the Bangladeshi side of the border have taken refuge in relatives' homes further away from the violence for fear of being caught up in the fighting.
According to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, panic has gripped refugee camps in Myanmar and many are waiting to cross the border into Bangladesh because supply chains have been disrupted due to the ongoing conflict, leaving supplies of essential goods lacking.
By now the clashes between soldiers of the military junta and ethnic rebels are spreading to a large part of the country and the coordination of the opposition is causing enormous problems for the armed forces, which now appear close to the point of no return. The flight of the border guards is a sign of the progressive dismantling of the country's armed forces. The redde rationem could happen sooner than many expect.
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The article Almost central Myanmar border guards flee to Bangladesh amid clashes with rebels comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/quasi-centro-guardia-di-fronteira-del-myanmar-fuggono-in-bangladesh-nel-mezzo-degli-scontri-con-i-ribelli/ on Tue, 06 Feb 2024 10:00:45 +0000.