Staff Reporter :
The Coast Guard on Saturday sent back a boat carrying 31 Rohingyas who were trying to illegally enter Bangladesh through the Naf River.
Members of the Coast Guard intercepted the boat on the river near Shahparir Dwip in Teknaf Upazila around 4am and sent them back to Myanmar, said Operations Officer of Coast Guard Chittagong East Zone Lt Commander Sheikh Fakhr Uddin, reports our Teknaf correspondent.
Among the Rohingyas, 18 were men, nine women and four children, he said.
Sheikh Fakhr Uddin said that two of the men were seriously injured.
About 1,000 Rohingya Muslims reportedly arrived in Bangladesh in the past two weeks amid fresh military operation in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Following the report, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the Coast Guard have stepped up patrols on Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar to prevent influx of Rohingyas into Bangladesh.
Members of BGB and Coast Guard were patrolling round the clock to check the influx.
“No one will be allowed to illegally cross into our country,” a senior BGB official, told media, adding that the two countries were jointly patrolling frontier areas.
There had been no major influx recently, he said, adding that the border was peaceful.
Myanmar’s army launched a massive crackdown in the state after Rohingyas reportedly killed nine police in October, 2016 but the flow of refugees into Bangladesh had slowed until hundreds more soldiers were deployed recently.
There had been a constant “slow movement of people across the border,” reported Reuters quoting an unnamed senior UN official in Bangladesh.
About 1,000 households had crossed each month in April, May and June, estimated the official.
The figure rose to 1,300 households in July, the official said, adding that the border area was “definitely seeing more new arrivals” in August.
About 500 of the newly arrived Rohingya live near an unofficial refugee camp in Leda, near the Naf river separating Bangladesh from Myanmar, said Zayed, a Rohingya leader.
The rest have moved elsewhere in the border district of Cox’s Bazar.
Before the latest inflow, about 75,000 Rohinhya had arrived in Bangladesh for security reason since October, joining tens of thousands already there and straining resources.
