Bangladesh Protests Myanmar Airspace Incursions Amid Rohingya Crisis

Bangladesh on Friday protested “repeated incursions of its airspace” by Myanmar helicopters, as rights groups said atrocities were being committed against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state and Hindu refugees reported that their people were also being targeted.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims and hundreds of Hindu families have poured into southeastern Bangladesh from the neighboring state in Myanmar since a new cycle of violence broke out there last week, according to U.N. sources and eyewitnesses.

At least 41 people have drowned within the past week while trying to cross the Naf River that separates the two countries, officials in Cox’s Bazar district said.

On Friday, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had lodged a “strong protest” via Myanmar’s embassy in Dhaka about what it described as multiple flyovers of its southeastern airspace by helicopters from the neighboring country on Aug. 27-28 and Sept. 1.

“This morning, Myanmar helicopters violated Bangladesh’s air space near Ukhia on three occasions,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to an area in Cox’s Bazar that hosts refugee camps and settlements.

“[T]hese instances of incursion into Bangladesh air space by Myanmar helicopters run contrary to the good neighborly relations and could lead to [an] unwarranted situation,” the ministry said Friday in a statement.

“The Ministry further emphasized that while Bangladesh has been cooperating with Myanmar in the security sector, such instances [of] violation of sovereignty may affect the existing understanding and cooperation between the two countries,” it added.

The statement came four days after Bangladesh proposed joint military action against a Rohingya insurgency group operating along the border.

A series of coordinated deadly attacks against Myanmar police outposts in Rakhine by the organization known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) inflamed the latest cycle of violence that has caused tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims to escape across the border.

Around 400 people have been killed since violence broke out in Rakhine on Aug. 24, according to the latest official information released by Myanmar’s military, reports said.

The updated death toll included 370 Rohingya insurgents, 13 security personnel, two officials and 14 civilians, military officials said.

‘Beheaded’

Human rights groups, meanwhile, called on the Myanmar state security forces to put an immediate stop to attacks on civilians, and on Bangladesh to stop turning away refugees arriving along its southeastern border.

Members of the Myanmar state security forces and local residents had “committed mass killings” of Rohingya men, women and children and had burned down “numerous villages” in northern Rakhine in the last week, Fortify Rights said, citing interviews with 24 newly arrived refugees who came from 17 villages in Rakhine.

“The situation is dire,” Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith said. “Mass atrocity crimes are continuing. The civilian government and military need to do everything in their power to immediately prevent more attacks.”

His group said the new cycle of violence marked the second major attack on Rohingya civilians by Myanmar security forces and local villagers since October 2016, when more than 80,000 people fled to Bangladesh.

“Some people were beheaded, and many were cut. We were in the house hiding …When we saw that, we just ran out the back of the house,” according to an account given to Fortify Rights by a 27-year-old Rohingya refugee identified as “Sultan Ahmed.”

Fortify said eyewitnesses had described how ARSA members were also killing civilians – suspected “government informants” – and preventing men and boys from fleeing Maungdaw Township.

“Some militants won’t let the men go, they only let the women pass,” a Rohingya man in the township told Fortify Rights by phone. “They threaten people and say that if they try to cross the border, they will kill them.”

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told BenarNews that its researchers had not been able to enter affected areas in Rakhine but had interviewed newly arrived refugees in Bangladesh who described “scorched earth tactics” by Myanmar’s army.

“Many are presenting injuries such as burns and bullet wounds that are consistent with being attacked by soldiers who are also burning down structures,” Robertson said.

He said HRW was calling on Myanmar’s government to grant visas to a U.N.-sanctioned fact-finding mission so it could conduct an impartial probe into the alleged rights abuses and atrocities in Rakhine. Bangladesh should also fully cooperate with the mission in allowing it to interview refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Robertson added.

Numbers swell

By Friday, the number of refugees who had crossed into to Bangladesh in the past eight days had swelled to 38,000, a U.N. official stationed in the district told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

In Geneva, a spokeswoman for the U.N.’s refugee agency said it was not possible to confirm that figure as refugees were arriving via multiple routes and seeking shelter in scattered locations.

“[W]e can only confirm the number of those arriving in the existing camps. As many as 12,000 newly arrived Rohingya have taken refuge in existing camps, however, there may be thousands others who have sought shelter with their relatives outside camps,” Duniya Aslam Khan told BenarNews in an email on Friday.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres "is deeply concerned by the reports of excesses during the security operations conducted by Myanmar's security forces in Rakhine State and urges restraint and calm to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe," said a statement issued Friday by his spokesman.

The U.N. chief urged Myanmar to help those in need and enable the United Nations and its partners to extend humanitarian support in the area.

Hindus targeted

On Friday, police in Cox’s Bazar said that 18 more bodies of refugees were pulled out of the Naf River, bringing the death toll among Rohingya and others fleeing the violence in Rakhine to 41.

The bodies recovered on Friday included four women, five children and nine men, Md. Ali Hossain, the district’s deputy commissioner, told BenarNews.

“We have been trying our best to stop the infiltration,” said Lt. Col. S.M. Ariful Islam, the commander of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) in Teknaf sub-district.

“Since Friday at dawn, four thousand Rohingyas were detained and later sent back to Myanmar,” he added.

In the past few days, the influx of refugees from Rakhine has included some 400 Hindu families, according to local officials and eyewitnesses interviewed by BenarNews.

Some of them described attacks carried out on their community by masked men.

“[On] Saturday night, the miscreants torched the houses of 10 Hindu families. They shot at everyone except those with Rakhine faces,” Hindu refugee Swapon Shil told BenarNews.

“We do not know who those attackers were,” said the resident of Bowlibazar in Rakhine who hid out in nearby hills for days before crossing the border.

The unknown assailants killed at least 100 Hindus who lived in the villages of Bowlibazar and Fakirabazar in Maungdaw Township, refugees told Benar.

“The armed people, covered with black clothes, herded them out of their village. They set the houses on fire and looted gold ornaments,” refugee Gonga Bala, another Hindu, told BenarNews.

“They separated the younger women from the elderly. They slaughtered the aged men and women. I came here to save my life,” she said.

Roni Toldanes and Imran Vittachi in Washington contributed to this report.