DHAKA: Myanmar has asked Bangladesh to stop providing aid to 6,000 Rohingya stranded on the border between the two countries since a military crackdown prompted a mass exodus of the Muslim minority last year, the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka said.
The group refused to enter Bangladesh in the months during and after Myanmar’s military campaign, which drove 700,000 other Rohingya across the frontier in an act the UN, US and other western countries have condemned as ethnic cleansing.
They are now stuck in a narrow “no mans land” relying on international aid sent by Bangladesh.
Myanmar called for the aid to be halted in talks between Bangladeshi Foreign Minister A. H. Mahmood Ali and Myanmar’s top diplomatic envoy, Kyaw Tint Swe, in Myanmar’s capital Napyidaw on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said.
“Myanmar particularly requested Bangladesh to stop providing humanitarian assistance to those people... and proposed to arrange supply of humanitarian assistance from Myanmar side,” the ministry said.
Bangladesh made no commitment but “responded positively” to Myanmar’s proposal to conduct a survey of the no mans land area, the ministry said.
A Myanmar minister on a visit to the strip of land earlier this year warned the Rohingya refugees that they will face “consequences” if they do not take up a Myanmar offer to return.
Dil Mohammad, a Rohingya community leader among the group on the border, said the latest pressure from Myanmar to vacate the no mans land area would add to their hardship.
Bangladesh urged to stop aid to stranded Rohingya
Bangladesh urged to stop aid to stranded Rohingya
- They are now stuck in a narrow “no mans land” relying on international aid sent by Bangladesh
- Myanmar particularly requested Bangladesh to stop providing humanitarian assistance to those people
Trump invites Colombia’s Petro to White House after earlier threat of military action
- Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025
WASHINGTON/BOGOTA: Days after threatening Colombia with military action, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said arrangements were being made for the country’s President Gustavo Petro to visit the White House, following a call between the two leaders. Trump and Petro said they discussed relations between the two countries in their first call since the US president on Sunday said that a US military operation focused on Colombia’s government “sounds good” to him. That threat followed Trump ordering the US capture of the president of neighboring Venezuela, who was flown to the US to face drug and weapons charges.
“It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump added “arrangements are being made” for a meeting in Washington between himself and Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, but gave no specific date for a meeting.
“We have spoken by phone for the first time since he became president,” Petro told supporters gathered at a rally in Bogota meant to celebrate Colombia’s sovereignty, adding he had requested a restart of dialogue between the two countries.
A source in Petro’s office told Reuters the call was “cordial” and “respectful.”
Relations between Trump and Petro have been frosty since the Republican returned to the White House in January 2025.
Trump has repeatedly accused the administration of Petro, without evidence, of enabling a steady flow of cocaine into the US, imposing sanctions on the Colombian leader in October.
On Sunday Trump referred to Petro as “a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”
The US in September had revoked Petro’s visa after he joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in New York following a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and called on US soldiers to “disobey the orders of Trump.”
Petro, who has been a vocal opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza, had accused Trump of being “complicit in genocide” in Gaza and called for “criminal proceedings” over US missile attacks on suspected drug-running boats in Caribbean waters.
The Trump administration has carried out more than 30 strikes against suspected drug boats since September, in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
