DHAKA (Reuters) – A 15-year old Rohingya boy was killed and at least six people were injured when mortar shells fired from Myanmar exploded in Bangladesh, the latest in a series of violent incidents, officials and a Rohingya leader said.
More than a million Rohingya are living in camps in southern Bangladesh that comprise the world’s largest refugee settlement, the vast majority having fled from Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.
The Rohingya have been caught in the crossfire between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army, an armed group fighting for self-determination for ethnic minorities in Rakhine state.
The teenager was killed late on Friday, said Dil Mohammed, a Rohingya leader in no-man’s land, a strip of land along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border where an estimated 4,000 Rohingya live.
“We are living here in constant fear. Anytime any catastrophe can happen,” Mohammed told Reuters by phone.
Strong protests would be lodged with Myanmar over the incident, a Bangladesh government official and border guard official said.
Bangladesh this month issued a statement expressing “deep concern over falling mortar shells inside Bangladesh territory, indiscriminate aerial firing from Myanmar in the bordering areas, and air space violation from Myanmar”.
The Myanmar envoy in Dhaka has been summoned three times in recent weeks so that those concerns could be conveyed.
(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
