“War-like situation has not come yet”: Home Minister on Myanmar mortar shelling

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal today (September 21, 2022) said that the government is ready to deal with any kind of situation while referring to the repeated mortar shelling from Myanmar.

"We have come to the conclusion that our national policy is friendship with all and enmity with none. We never encourage war. And a war-like situation has not come yet," he said after a high-level meeting with top officials of the army, air force, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), coast guard, other law enforcement agencies, and foreign ministry officials at the conference room of the home ministry in the Secretariat in Dhaka.

"Our prime minister is not in the country. We are observing the situation where the Myanmar Army is at war with the Arakan Army (AA)," he said while talking with reporters.

"The ammunition from that war is coming across the border into our country," the home boss said.

Mentioning that there have been casualties due to the shelling, he said, "The people of the country are in fear about what is happening. That's why we held the meeting. Myanmar is engaged in internal conflict," he added.

"All of us, including the army, have said that we are always ready to face any situation," he added.

"We got independence in the country by fighting…We are a nation of heroes and we are always ready," said the home boss.

"We do not know who is trying to instigate. What we see is that they are fighting by themselves," he said, adding Bangladesh has no role in the internal conflict that is happening at the border.

Over the past few weeks, the Myanmar military reportedly continued its air and ground assaults against the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed organisation based in the Rakhine state.

The situation got worse on September 16 after a Rohingya youth was killed and five others, including two children, were injured as a mortar shell fired from the Myanmar side exploded at a Rohingya camp on no-man's land near Tambru Bazar in Ghumdhum upazila of Bandarban's Naikhongchhari.