The Bangladesh foreign ministry has summoned Myanmar ambassador to Dhaka, Aung Kyae Moe, over several incidents of shelling of Myanmar security forces along the border in the last few days.
Acting DG of Myanmar Wing at the foreign ministry, Nazmul Huda, summoned the Myanmar ambassador on Sunday morning.
This is for the fourth time the Myanmar envoy was summoned at the ministry for the border incidents.
Firing from artillery and shelling have been going on incessantly on the Myanmar side of the border in Ghumdhum area in Bandarban’s Naikhyangchhari upazila, creating panic among the Bangladeshi residents.
A Rohingya teen, Md Iqbal, died earlier on Friday night as mortar shells from a hill in Myanmar fell in a Rohingya shelter centre on the zero line. Five more Rohingyas including a girl were injured.
Besides, a Bangladeshi youth named Athowaing Tanchangya, 22, was critically injured in a landmine explosion near pillar No. 35 opposite to Tumbru border when he went there to bring his cattle on Friday afternoon.
The youth, a resident of Headman para, is now undergoing treatment at Chattogram Medical College Hospital. Panicked farmers fear more landmine explosions along the border after the incident. Farmers are not going to the fields fearing there could be more landmines.
Local people’s representatives and border security force personnel said the Myanmar army started firing mortar shells continuously on Friday afternoon after a pause of three days.
The firing continued till 4 in the morning. The firing started again on Walidong hill in Rakhine state in Myanmar from 9:00am on Saturday. The incessant firing created panic among the people along the Ghumdum border. SSC examinees of Ghumdum high school centre were shifted to Kutupalang high school due to security reasons.
Earlier, on 9 September, a bullet fired from Myanmar fell on the yard of the house of Shahjahan, a farmer in Konarpara village near Tumbru Bazar.
There is a Rohingya shelter centre along the zero line. The camp’s managing committee chairman Dil Mohammad, 50, said the firing targeting the shelter camp on zero line seems to be planned as the Myanmar army has long been wanting the nearly 4,200 Rohingyas sheltered on the camp to be moved inside Bangladesh.
But the Rohingyas of that camp do not want to move elsewhere as the place is near their houses in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, he added.
Earlier, two shells fired from Myanmar security force’s helicopter fell inside Bangladesh. The foreign ministry summoned the Myanmar ambassador and sternly protested the incidents along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.