By Navalsang Parmar (Dhaka)
Fourteen soldiers of Myanmar’s paramilitary Border Guard Police (BGP) took refuge in the wee hours of Sunday in Bangladesh. The soldiers fled their posts to Cox’s Bazar region in Bangladesh amid reports of heavy gunfights between the government troops and the rebel resistance fighters in the junta-run country.
An official of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) told reporters on Sunday at Cox’s Bazar that 14 members of Myanmar’s BGP fled their country and they were in Bangladesh BGB’s custody.
The Paramilitary guards crossed the border in wee hours through the Ghumdhum border along with their weapons and sought refuge to their BGB counterparts in Cox’s Bazar, reports Bangladesh Sangbad Sansthan (BSS)
A member of the local union council in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh said sounds of cross border gunfights on Saturday night and Sunday panicked residents in villages in the frontier with Myanmar.
Bangladesh ordered an intensified security vigil on its border with Myanmar amid skirmishes between the government troops and the rebel fighters Arakan Army which is active in the bordering Rakhine region of Myanmar, reports BSS.
Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar stretches 271.0 kilometres from the tri-point with India in the north, to the Bay of Bengal in the south.