Published: 11:23 AM, 07 September 2017 Last Update: 11:27 AM, 07 September 2017
12 more Rohingya bodies found
Amid an ongoing army crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, 12 more bodies, which locals claim are of Rohingya victims, have been retrieved from Teknaf and Ghumdhum border point in Bandarban.
Seven including five children were found at Naf River along Shah Porir Dwip in Teknaf on Wednesday. Five bullet-hit bodies were found in Ghumdhum.
Wednesday's numbers take the tally of Rohingya people found dead on the shore to 70 in the last two weeks.
In the morning, five children, aged between 6 and 7 years, washed up dead on the Bangladesh shore, said police in the bordering region of Teknaf in Cox's Bazar.
Locals reported to police after they found the children floating on the river in the morning.
Teknaf police OC Md Mainuddin Khan told bdnews24.com they believe the children died after the boats carrying them to Bangladesh sank on the river. The bodies will be buried in Teknaf, he said.
The bullet-hit bodies were recovered from Ghumdhum in the afternoon, said Lt Col Monjurul Hasan of Cox’s Bazar-based BGB Battalion-34. “Their relatives brought them here for burial after they died in Myanmar.”
None of them could be identified yet.
Bangladesh security forces recovered one body on Tuesday, five on Sunday, three on Saturday, 26 on Friday, 19 on Thursdayand four on Wednesday.
Two Rohingya women died of illness at Shah Porir Dwip early on Wednesday, said OC Mainuddin.
“They had intruded and stayed at Shah Porir Dwip two days ago.”
One was aged above 80 while the other around 4, he said. Police are yet to find out what disease led to their deaths.
According to the UN, about 126,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar's Rakhine State until Wednesday, almost two weeks after insurgents
attacked police posts and an army base, prompting a brutal military counteroffensive and clashes.
But dwellers at the border put the figure much higher.
As many as 400 people have been reported dead in fighting that has rocked the country's northwest, according to latest official figures.
On Wednesday, Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi blamed "terrorists" for "a huge iceberg of misinformation" on the violence but did not say anything about the Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh since late August.
In the meantime, Myanmar border guards have reportedly opened fire on Rohingyas who had taken shelter at the zero point in Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban after crossing the Naf River.
Suu Kyi, the leader of Buddhist-majority Myanmar, has come under pressure from countries with Muslim populations over the crisis, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing and regional destabilisation.
In a rare letter expressing concern that the violence that has raged for nearly two weeks in the northwestern state could spiral into a "humanitarian catastrophe", Guterres urged the UN Security Council to press for restraint and calm.
