Rohingya man killed in suspected landmine blast

A Rohingya man was killed in a suspected landmine blast along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, officials said yesterday.

Nearly one million Rohingyas have been living in camps in southeast Bangladesh after fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Dhaka has previously accused Myanmar security forces of planting mines along the frontier to prevent the refugees from returning -- a charge Myanmar rejects.

A loud explosion was heard early yesterday in Ghumdum border area, although the blast appeared to have occurred inside Myanmar, Border Guard Bangladesh regional commander Ali Haider Azad Ahmed told AFP.

“Our men heard the sound which was apparently of a landmine blast. The man’s body was lying near the border,” he told AFP.

Officials said the victim was Abdul Majid, a refugee in his 20s from Kutupalong camp, the world’s largest refugee camp, in Cox’s Bazar.

Dil Mohammad, a Rohingya community leader who lives in the tiny strip of no man’s land in a small settlement of 4,000 of the stateless minority, said it took place near their makeshift homes.

“This is very frightening for us,” he told AFP.

Myanmar troops have been accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Muslim minority, with some 740,000 fleeing to Bangladesh since August 2017.

At the height of the mass exodus when tens of thousands of Rohingya poured into Bangladesh every day, several were killed or seriously hurt in suspected landmine explosions along the border.