Bangladesh summons Myanmar’s envoy over repeated cross-border shelling

DHAKA, Bangladesh

In less than a month, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned Myanmar’s envoy for the fourth time to warn the neighboring state over the repeated firing of mortar shells inside Bangladesh, according to official sources.

The ministry served Myanmar’s Ambassador to Bangladesh Aung Kyaw Moe a diplomatic note, protesting the repeated incidents of the firing of mortar shells toward Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s army and rebel Arakan Army, a Buddhist Rakhine ethnic minority insurgent group, have been fighting in the hilly areas adjacent to the border with Bangladesh for over a month.

During the clashes, mortar shells and gun bullets fired by Myanmar’s army crossed the borderlines several times, hitting Bangladeshi residential areas, and creating panic among thousands of locals as well as 4,500 Rohingya living in the no-man’s land of the border area.

A Rohingya youth was killed and six others, including a Bangladeshi national, were wounded on Friday night as a mortar shell fired by Myanmar’s forces exploded near a Rohingya camp located in the no-man’s land of Bangladesh’s southeastern border district of Bandarban.

Bangladesh is currently hosting more than 1.2 million persecuted Rohingya who fled a brutal military clampdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State in 2017.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Myanmar’s envoy assured that he would convey Bangladesh’s message to his government very soon.

On Saturday, Bangladesh’s Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said his country is hopeful of solving the prevailing crisis with Myanmar through diplomatic channels.

“But, if the situation is not improved and firing towards Bangladesh continues, we will lodge a complaint with the United Nations against Myanmar,” Khan told journalists.

Meanwhile, firing is still continuing inside Myanmar across the border with Bangladesh, local authorities and Rohingya living there said on Sunday.

“We have set up some new check-posts of our Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to beef up security along the border to halt any untoward incident and illegal exodus,” Bandarban Deputy Commissioner Yasmin Parvin Tibriji told Anadolu Agency.

Authorities also warned local people to stay alert and avoid unnecessary movement near the border areas in the wake of prevailing unrest.