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Published : 31 May 2014, 03:54 PM
“One from the other side [Bangladesh] was killed by our police force when a clash broke out on May 28,” Tun Oo, a police colonel in Sittwe, Arakan State, told Myanmar's news portal, Irrawaddy on Friday. “After the clash, we have had ongoing negotiations and there is no problem.”
But Bangladesh media reported a fresh clash between the two border guard forces on Friday afternoon.
Immediately after the clash on Wednesday, police in Arakan State’s Maungdaw Township told Burmese media that the incident involved the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), a militant group said to be based in Bangladesh.
The killed man was said to be a RSO member.
Sources near the border in Maungdaw Township told The Irrawaddy that the Burmese military has deployed troops, seemingly in response to the heightened presence of Bangladesh security personnel across the border.
Hla Maung, a Rohingya Muslim in Maungdaw, said that although the township was “stable,” some villagers living near the increasingly tense area have fled, fearing more clashes might break out amid the bolstered security presence on both sides of the border.
The BGB officer was killed between border posts 52 and 53, about 30 miles from Maungdaw Township, the Myanmar Border police colonel said.
But he provided no details of the dead border guard's identity.
Clashes involving Myanmar police along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border have been increasingly reported in recent months.
An Arakan State spokesman confirmed last week that four border guard police officers were killed after a gunfight on May 17 with an unidentified armed group along the border.
The Burmese government has undertaken an effort to fence in the porous border on the country’s western flank, saying it is necessary to protect Burma’s sovereignty and prevent illegal border crossings from Bangladesh.
No one was available for comment at the Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon on Friday.
