Fighting raged Sunday in Myanmar near the border with Bangladesh, where terrified residents reported bullets crossing the border and medics treating the wounded.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said its doctors in the Bangladeshi port city of Cox's Bazar had
"received a large number of wounded following the fighting on the border"
.
According to this organization, on Sunday evening, 17 injured people were admitted to the Kutupalong refugee camp hospital for treatment.
Bangladesh Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said for his part that at least 14 border guards from Rakhine State in Burma
"had entered our territory to protect themselves"
in the face of the advance of the rebel fighters of the Arakan Army (AA).
The AA, made up of fighters from an ethnic minority, has for years waged an intermittent war for autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine population, who live near the border with Bangladesh.
For its part, the private Bangladeshi channel Channel 24 reported that at least 66 Burmese border guards had sought refuge in Bangladesh, including 10 wounded by gunfire.
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“The Arakan Army has captured many areas of Rakhine State and according to our information, they are advancing
,” the minister told reporters in Dhaka.
Parts of Burma close to the 270-kilometre border with Bangladesh - as well as neighboring India to the north - have seen frequent clashes since November, when AA fighters ended a ceasefire widely respected since the 2021 coup. In October, an alliance including AA insurgents and other ethnic minority fighters launched a joint offensive in northern Burma, seizing trading centers in the Chinese border.
Bangladeshi villagers living near the border said they feared the fighting could spill over.
Khairul Bashar, 25, said his uncle was hit in the leg by a bullet fired from Burma.
“We spend sleepless nights in fear
,” he said.
As for Rahima Begum, 67, she confided:
“Our houses were machine-gunned and a bomb fell near our house, making the house shake”
.
The interior minister said Bangladesh had stepped up security along its border and would contact Myanmar to remove the guards.
Bangladesh is already home to around a million Rohingya refugees, driven out of Burma during a military crackdown in 2017.