2 people killed in Bangladesh as fighting rages on Myanmar border

Parts of Myanmar near the 270-kilometre (167-mile) border with Bangladesh have seen frequent clashes since November, when rebel Arakan Army fighters ended a ceasefire that had largely held since a 2021 coup.

“The two were killed at around 2:15pm in the firing at Jalpaitoli village,” local police chief Abdul Mannan said.

Police said a Bangladeshi woman, named as 48-year-old Hosne Ara, and an unnamed ethnic Rohingya man had been killed.

“They were sitting in the kitchen … when a mortar hit the place,” Ara’s daughter-in-law said, too distraught to give her name.

“She was serving lunch to the Rohingya man who was hired by the family for farm work when they were hit.”

Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan on Sunday said that border police officers from neighbouring Myanmar’s Rakhine state had “entered our territory for self-protection” ahead of advancing AA fighters.

A spokesman of the Border Guard Bangladesh, the country’s frontier forces, said on Monday that “at least 95 border officers of Myanmar have crossed the border and taken shelter in Bangladeshi border posts”.

Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said its doctors in Cox’s Bazar had on Sunday received 17 patients “following fighting at the Bangladesh-Myanmar border”.

“All the patients had gunshot wounds”, MSF said on Monday. “Two were in life-threatening condition, and five were seriously injured.”

However, Bangladesh’s private broadcaster Channel 24 said the number of guards was higher, reporting at least 66 officers had sought shelter, including 10 with bullet wounds.

“The Arakan Army has captured many areas of Rakhine state one after another,” Khan told reporters in Dhaka. “According to our information, they are advancing forward.”

In October, an alliance including