Myanmar border guards flee to Bangladesh amid clashes with rebels

At least 95 Myanmar border guards, some of them wounded, have fled to Bangladesh over the last few days as fighting intensifies between rebel forces in Myanmar and the junta regime

At least 95 Myanmar border guards, some of them wounded, have fled to Bangladesh over the last few days as fighting intensifies between rebel forces in Myanmar and the junta regime, officials in Bangladesh said on Monday (Feb 5).

At least two people were killed in Bangladesh on Monday after mortar shells fired from Myanmar during clashes there landed across the border.

Since mounting a coup against an elected government in 2021, the junta is facing its biggest challenge, trying to contain a bloody rebellion which has seen allied anti-junta groups backed by a pro-democracy parallel government seize control of several military posts and towns.

The sound of gunfire could be heard from across the Myanmar border in Bangladesh's southeastern tourist district of Cox's Bazar, where nearly a million members of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in bamboo-and-plastic hut camps after fleeing a military crackdown there in 2017.

Members of the Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) entered Bangladesh with their weapons and 15 of them had bullet wounds when they crossed the border, Shariful Islam, a spokesman for Border Guard Bangladesh, said on Monday, adding that the wounded received treatment at different hospitals.