Myanmar security forces intensified operations against Rohingya insurgents on Monday, police and other sources said, following three days of clashes with militants in the worst violence involving Myanmar’s Muslim minority in five years.
The fighting — triggered by coordinated attacks on Friday by insurgents wielding sticks, knives and crude bombs on 30 police posts and an Army base — has killed 104 people and led to the flight of large numbers of Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist civilians from the northern part of Rakhine State.
“Now the situation is not good. Everything depends on them — if they’re active, the situation will be tense,” said police officer Tun Hlaing from Buthidaung township, referring to the Rohingya insurgents.
Rohingya villagers make up the majority in the area.
“We split into two groups, one will provide security at police outposts and the other group is going out for clearance operation with the military,” he said.
A Buthidaung-based reporter, citing police sources directly involved in events, said three police posts in northern Buthidaung had been surrounded by Rohingya insurgents.
In neighbouring Bangladesh on Monday, border guards tried to push back refugees stranded in no man’s land near the village of Gumdhum.
A Bangladesh Foreign Ministry official told reporters Bangladesh was willing to work with Myanmar to crack down on the insurgents. “The main purpose is to ensure Myanmar can’t accuse us of harbouring them to use against them,” said the official.
Islamist group
An Islamist group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which Myanmar has declared a terrorist organisation, claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks. It was also behind the violence in October.
In a video posted online on Monday, ARSA leader Ata Ullah, flanked by two gun-toting men in masks, warned Myanmar against “oppressing” Rohingya and vowed to keep fighting to protect the rights of the community.
Rohingya have been fleeing Myanmar since the early 1990s and there are now about 4,00,000 in Bangladesh, which has said no new refugees will be allowed in.
Bangladeshi police threatened refugees already in the country with arrest if they help new arrivals, refugee sources said.
Nevertheless, an estimated 5,000 people have crossed into Bangladesh in the past few days, with more than 1,000 coming early on Monday, according to Rohingya refugees in camps in the border district of Cox’s Bazar.
