A Rohingya refugee has been killed in a landmine explosion along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, Bangladesh officials said on September 3, 2019.
The body of the deceased was recovered near the Ghumdhum border of Naikhongchhari Upazila on the Bangladesh side, an official said.
BGB regional commander Ali Haider Azad Ahmed has said the dead man is believed to be a Rohingya refugee. Locals have identified him as Md Shahjahan, aged 32, resident of a Rohingya refugee camp,
Bangladesh border guards said they heard a loud explosion on September 3 and saw several men leaving behind a badly wounded person at the border village of Ghumdum.
The body was sent to the Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital morgue. The state of the body suggested that he was killed in a landmine explosion, as his legs were blown clean off, according to Ghumdhum police outpost in-charge Emon Chowdhury.
“We suspect he was killed in a landmine explosion inside Myanmar and then these people carried the body to Bangladesh territory,” a senior Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) official said on condition of anonymity.
The incident took place along the border around 7 pm on September 3, 2019.
Bangladesh officials have accused Myanmar security forces of planting mines along border areas to prevent the refugees from returning to their villages.
It has been a long-time complaint of locals that Myanmar security forces have been planting landmines along the border with Bangladesh in Tumbru, Ghumdhum, and Ashartali areas of the Naikhongchhari Upazila.
Anti-personnel mines were banned under a global treaty in 1997.
Amnesty International says it has documented what appears to be the targeted use of landmines along a narrow stretch forming part of the northwestern border of Rakhine.