Myanmar Rohingya stranded as border fighting rages
fire on Saturday as they huddled along the “zero line” which marks the northernmost part of the border.
“Around 6,000 Myanmar nationals have gathered on the border and are trying to enter Bangladesh,” a senior Border Guard Bangladesh official said, referring to the Rohingya.
The official said the situation across the border, which is demarcated in parts by narrow stretches of the Naf River, was “still volatile”.
“Last night we heard heavy gunfire by automatic weapons in phases and saw smoke billowing from burnt villages across the border,” he said.
Another BGB official estimated the number of Rohingya in limbo could exceed 10,000, as many were believed to be hiding in the forests to escape violence.
Their flight comes as Human Rights Watch said it has satellite data “consistent with widespread burnings” in 10 populated areas of the violencewracked wedge of Rakhine State near Bangladesh.
But border guards have been ordered not to let them cross.
“How can I deny shelter to [a] newborn who is dying from cold?” said a border guard, who asked to remain anonymous.
With around 400,000 Rohingya already living in squalid camps in Bangladesh, the government has instructed its border guards to prevent another influx.
In a statement the UN’s refugee agency said barring entry creates a “very grave risk” for the fleeing people.
Speaking in Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards added it “is of the utmost impor- tance that it [Bangladesh] continue to allow Rohingya fleeing violence to seek safety”.
His comments reinforced a message from UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres who called on Bangladesh to step up assistance to escaping civilians, in particular the wounded.
Instead nearly 500 Rohingya have been detained and returned trying to cross the border since Monday, according to Shariful Islam Jamaddar, a deputy commander of BGB.
Border guards have been driving Rohingya who have managed to cross into Bangladesh back across the border several times a day, an AFP correspondent at the scene said. Some Rohingya have made it just inside Bangladeshi territory, momentarily safe from violence but unable to move onwards to shelter.
On Monday, Bangladeshi authorities proposed joint military operations with Myanmar against Rohingya militants fighting in Rakhine State, hoping to stem the flow of the displaced.
In a meeting with Myanmar’s charge d’affaires in Dhaka, a top Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry official proposed joint military efforts against the militants along the border.
“If Myanmar wished, the security forces of the two countries could conduct joint operations against the militants, any nonstate actors or the Arakan Army along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border,” a Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, as he was not permitted to speak to the media.
The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army is a militant group that says it is fighting to protect the Muslim minority from abuses by Myanmar security forces and the majority-Buddhist Rakhine community.
The Rohingya are reviled in Myanmar with most refused citizenship, while their ability to move, work and receive basic services is tightly controlled.
They are not recognised as an ethnic group, which would be protected by law, but are instead branded “Bengalis”, code for illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
Speaking to ambassadors in Yangon, Myanmar’s Home Affairs Minister Kyaw Swe, repeated the official line: “There are no Rohingya.” The recent attacks by militants are because “Bengali people . . . tried to occupy lands” in Rakhine.