Mortar shell from Myanmar kills 2 in Bangladesh

Two people died on Monday when mortar shells from Myanmar hit them in Jalpaitali village of Ghumdhum Union under Naikhongchhari Upazila of Bandarban.

The mortar shell crashed into a kitchen of the village, killing one Bangladesh woman and a Rohingya man.

Residents in several frontier Bangladesh villages moved to safety amid skirmishes between the government troops and the rebel Arakan Army. Several mortar shells and bullets landed inside Bangladesh in the past several days though no casualty was reported.

Till now, 95 BGP members have taken refuge in Bangladesh. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have taken them into custody.

Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar stretches 271.0 kilometres (168.4 miles), from the tri-point with India in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south.

Bangladesh played a critical role when over a million Muslim minority Rohingyas fled their home in Rakhine and took refuge in Bangladesh to evade persecution, particularly after a 2017 army crackdown but the current crisis visibly has little to do with the Rohingyas.

Bangladesh won praises for the handling of the world’s biggest refugee crisis while Dhaka repeatedly sought their repatriation to their homeland in Rakhine saying the Rohingyas were causing economic, social, security and environmental problems.

The issue is now the subject of a United Nations genocide investigation at the International Court of Justice.

/KN/