DHAKA—A Rohingya teenager was killed and another man injured when a land mine exploded on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border adjacent to Bandarban district, Bangladesh on Sunday morning, officials said Monday.
The victim, Omor Farok, 17, was a resident of Konarpara Rohingya camp in no man’s land, said community leaders. They named his injured companion as Abdu Yah.
Gumdhum Rohingya camp leader Abdur Rohim said the youths had gone fishing on the border when they were caught in the blast. The body of Farok was recovered and buried in Konarpara cemetery. The injured man was rushed to nearby MSF Hospital in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar.
Bangladesh Border Guards said the incident occurred about 1 km inside Myanmar’s border, opposite Bangladesh border marker 35, at about 9 a.m.
BGB Cox’s Bazar battalion commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Md Mehedi Hussain Kabir reiterated that the explosion occurred inside Myanmar’s border.
The BGB said land mines are not used inside Bangladesh territory as the country is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines.
Bangladesh signed the UN convention on May 7, 1998 and ratified it on Sept. 6, 2000.
BGB officials said three mines have exploded on the border this year, killing one person and injuring two.
Another ethnic minority youth, Aung Thein Tanchangya, was injured in a land mine blast on the same border on Sept. 16. He was sent to Chattogram Medical College Hospital but lost his left leg.
Over 4,000 Rohingya have been living in the Bangladesh-Myanmar border strip since 2017 when hundreds of thousands took refuge in Bangladesh following a military crackdown in neighboring Rakhine State.