People living on the border of South Chitrala are in panic.
Omar Faruk Ukhia – Cox’s Bazar.
In recent times, the sound of ammunition on the border has spread fear in several places. Due to insecurity, farmers are unable to cultivate, students are unable to go to schools, colleges, madrasas. Also, workers are unable to go to various activities including donation farming, jum farming, shop teaching.
All in all, the people there are passing through a terrible situation.
Across the border, in the mountains of Myanmar’s Rakhine state, shelling continues. Panic spread in the slums of Ghumdhum as the ammunition sometimes rushed across.
Due to the shelling, the parents have not allowed the students to go to school, college, madrasa for many days, thinking about the security.
The number of absentees in schools, colleges, madrasas, attendance registers is very high. Currently, the annual and central examination time table of the students has been published.
Meanwhile, the victims of the area are more worried because of the shelling on the other side of the border on Sunday morning.
As mortar shells fired by Myanmar security forces landed next to the rubber plantation on September 3, several sources in charge of border security and local public representatives said that there is no predicting when the shelling will start or stop in Rakhine State. If mortar shells or bullets arrive in the territory of Bangladesh, there is an alarm. Before this, Bangladesh had strongly protested by summoning the ambassador of Myanmar to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the incident of two mortar shells fired from a helicopter.
According to several newspapers, Naikxyongchari Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Salma Ferdous said that the local people reported the news that bullets fired from Myanmar had reached Konapara on Tumbru border. No casualty occurred in this incident. Gunshots are heard beyond them at the border. In between, there was a ceasefire on the Tumbru border for only two days. Since then there has been shelling. We are monitoring the border and tight security has been beefed up at the Naikshyongchari border to prevent Rohingya infiltration. Local residents have been advised not to panic by the administration.
Over the past two days, a number of Rohingyas have taken refuge in Ukhiyar Kutupalong and Balukhali camps in Cox’s Bazar, again crossing the border into Bangladesh due to the conflict inside Myanmar.
According to local sources, hundreds of thousands more Rohingyas are preparing to go to Bangladesh. They are waiting to pass through the various borders of Ghumdhum, Tumbru, Ukhia and Teknaf in Naikshyongchari of Bandarban.
Ukhiya Palongkhali Union Parishad Chairman Abdul Gafur said that the Rohingyas are fleeing to Bangladesh on the pretext of ongoing conflict inside Myanmar.