Bangladesh frontier guards turn back boat with Rohingyas at Myanmar border

The Border Guard Bangladesh has stopped and sent back to Myanmar a boat packed with 11 Rohingyas on the Naf river at Shah Parir Dwip point of the border at Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar.

Cox’s Bazar Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 13 August 2018, 08:37 PM
Updated : 13 August 2018, 09:05 PM

The Rohingyas included five children, three women and three men, BGB members said.

A BGB patrol spotted the boat from Myanmar at the zero line of the border around 11:15pm on Monday, BGB Teknaf-2 Battalion Additional Director Major Md Shariful Islam Joarder told reporters.

“The boat advanced despite BGB members’ signal to stop. The BGB members then turned the boat back,” he said.        

BGB would continue ‘strongly’ monitoring the border to prevent all sorts or crimes along the border, including trespass, he added. 

The attempt of Rohingya intrusion from Myanmar comes when Bangladesh is focusing on the “sustainable” return of the 700,000 Rohingyas who fled a brutal Myanmar Army crackdown launched on insurgents at the Rakhine State around a year ago.

Aug 25 marks a year of the start of the army operation, dubbed ‘ethnic cleansing’ by the international community, including the UN.

The total number of Rohingya refugees living in shabby Bangladesh camps stands around 1.1 million now.

The members of the Muslim ethnic minority group have been facing persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which denies them citizenship as well as access to basic facilities like health and education, for decades.     

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali visited Rakhine on Saturday to understand the progress of arranging physical infrastructure and the psychological aspect of the local community about taking the Rohingyas back, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam said on Monday.

“From that view, physical structure has progressed a lot,” he said.

Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque who accompanied the foreign minister during the visit said Myanmar wants to take the Rohingyas back.

On Friday, both sides in a bilateral meeting in Myanmar agreed on early Rohingya repatriation.

A hotline between the foreign minister and U Kyaw Tint Swe, Union Minister of the Office of the State Counsellor of Myanmar, was established for the ease of communications.