C T Online Desk: With Myanmar’s instability increasingly threatening to spill over onto Bangladesh, it is high time that the government prioritized heightened security measures along the two nation’s borders.
The recent spate of gunfire from Myanmar, which has all but isolated St Martin’s Island from the mainland, is yet another reminder of the Myanmar government being completely unable to keep its own internal violence in check. Given the incredibly bad hand that Myanmar has dealt Bangladesh through its ethnic cleansing operations against the Rohingya, their subsequent influx into our borders, and their government’s constant delays regarding repatriation attempts, Myanmar nationals shooting at Bangladesh is completely unacceptable.
It has been almost a week now that gunfire from Myanmar has been targeting Bangladeshi boats, resulting in no ships being able to travel between Teknaf and Saint Martin’s. With no food and staple items reaching the island, the residents are at a loss due to the crisis.
The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has recently announced that it would bring these incidents to the attention of Myanmar, but official measures through diplomatic channels alone are not going to keep our people safe.
Bangladesh has already shown enormous patience with regards to border violence instigated from the Myanmar side, but now the government and the BGB have to send a clearer message: Myanmar needs to check itself. The abject failure exhibited by the Myanmar government has already resulted in Bangladesh being put in an unfair situation far too many times, but the buck stops at our citizens being shot at.
We need our borders to be safe, there are no two ways about it.
