Bangladesh has detained and forcibly returned 90 Rohingya migrants to Myanmar, police said Sunday, just hours after Myanmarese troops on the other side of the border had opened fire on people fleeing the country.
Police intercepted a group of 70 Rohingya late Saturday after they crossed the “zero line” border zone, where Myanmar soldiers earlier fired mortars and machine guns at villagers making the dangerous dash from the northern state of Rakhine into Bangladesh.
The villagers were caught roughly four kilometres inside Bangladeshi territory en route to a refugee camp in Kutupalong, where thousands of Rohingya already live in squalid conditions, said local police chief Abul Khaer.
“All 70 were detained and later pushed back to Myanmar by the border guards,” Khaer told AFP.
Police said some of those detained had entered Bangladesh via the Ghumdhum border area — where the Myanmar forces unleashed the barrage of fire just hours earlier.
“They were pleading with us not to send them back to Myanmar,” said one policeman on condition of anonymity.
Another 20 Rohingya were caught Sunday and sent back after crossing the Naf river, a natural border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to Ariful Islam, a commander with Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).