Hundreds of Rohingya Flee to Bangladesh
Local Editor
Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in neighboring Myanmar, community leaders said Tuesday, but border guards have pushed back hundreds more despite a United Nations plea to let them in.
The UN said up to 30,000 Rohingya have been displaced by violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where dozens of people were killed in clashes with the military, and urged Dhaka to open its border to them.
Instead the Bangladesh government, under pressure from local communities to limit the number of migrants, intensified patrols along the 237-kilometer border to prevent a large-scale influx.
But Rohingya leaders told AFP an estimated 1,000 have still managed to get in over the last week.
Most are hiding out in camps for the 32,000 legal refugees already living in southeast Bangladesh, fearing repatriation if they are found by the authorities.
Among them is Mohammad Amin, 17, who said he and 15 others people fled their homes in Rakhine five days ago and reached Bangladesh by swimming across the Naf River that divides the two countries.
"The [Myanmar] army killed my father and elder brother. I hid on a hill and then walked and swam across the river, and took refuge at a mosque [in Bangladesh]," he told AFP by phone from Cox's Bazar near the border.
"I don't know what happened to my mother and sister."
In this regard, state media reports in Myanmar said security forces killed almost 70 people and arrested some 400 since the lockdown began six weeks ago, but activists noted that the number could be far higher.
Myanmar troops poured into a strip of land that is home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority since a series of attacks on police border posts last month.
Witnesses and activists reported troops killing Rohingya, abusing women and looting and burning their houses.
Commanders of the Border Guard Bangladesh said their troops had blocked nearly 300 Rohingya from crossing the border overnight, the highest number since the crisis began last month.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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