Bangladeshi Ambassador to Myanmar Md. Monwar Hossain met junta national security advisor and former Navy chief Admiral Moe Aung in Naypyitaw on Friday, just as the regime appears poised to lose control of Myanmar’s western border with the neighboring country.
The two discussed security matters and cooperation for stability along the border, junta media reported.
The regime is losing ground in northwestern Rakhine State, however, having lost the garrison town of Buthidaung on May 18. It is struggling to defend the other frontier town in the area, Maungdaw, which is mainly guarded by Border Guard Police battalions.
Stateless Rohingya people make up the majority in both towns. The hostilities there have forced people from many of the diverse area’s communities to flee their homes.
At least 600 junta Border Guard Police have fled across the border into Bangladesh since earlier this year amid fighting with the Arakan Army (AA). Some Maungdaw residents have also fled into Bangladesh following the recent fighting.
In 2017, after the Myanmar military’s “clearance operation” against the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army in northern Rakhine State, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh to escape the military’s atrocities.
Around 30 mortar shells landed on Bangladeshi soil, killing two civilians, during fighting in Maungdaw in February, prompting the Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry to complain to the junta’s ambassador to Bangladesh, Aung Kyaw Moe.
The AA’s political wing, the United League of Arakan, last week urged civilians and international organizations to evacuate Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Thandwe townships amid escalating fighting with the junta.
Civilian casualties have been reported in the junta’s air raids on towns seized by the AA on the border of Rakhine and Chin states.
The AA has seized control of nine of 17 townships in Rakhine, as well as Paletwa Township in neighboring Chin State, since launching an offensive in November. It is also attacking Rakhine State’s Ann Township, where the Myanmar military’s Western Command is based. The regime is preparing to defend Sittwe, the Rakhine capital and its administrative seat in the state.
