NEW YORK: Warning that a wider regional problem is at hand, Bangladesh’s leader said on Friday that the crisis involving Muslim Rohingya refugees from neighboring Myanmar is “going beyond the camps” where they are staying.
In Bangladesh’s annual address to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appealed to the international community to “understand the untenability of the situation” surrounding the refugees from Myanmar, who are fleeing persecution by the military there.
“I would request the international community to understand the untenability of the situation,” Hasina said. “The crisis is now going beyond the camps. Despite all our efforts to contain it, the crisis is now becoming a regional threat.”
She said that health and security are becoming problems as congestion and environmental problems increase.
She said Bangladesh will continue to work with Myanmar to encourage repatriation of the Rohingya. She has proposed at the UN this week a resolution ensuring that Myanmar and the international community must ensure the safety of any Rohingya returnees.
“We are bearing the burden of a crisis which is Myanmar’s own making,” Hasina said. “It is an issue solely between Myanmar and its own people, the Rohingyas. They themselves have to resolve it. Voluntary return of the Rohingyas to their homes in Rakhine state in safety, security and dignity is the only solution to the crisis.”
Hasina says Rohingya refugee crisis worsening
Hasina says Rohingya refugee crisis worsening
- Voluntary return of the Rohingyas to their homes in Rakhine state in safety, security and dignity is the only solution to the crisis
Pakistan says it struck militant hideouts along Afghan border after surge in deadly attacks
- Pakistan has seen a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP and outlawed Baloch separatist groups
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said early Sunday it carried out strikes along the border with Afghanistan, targeting hideouts of Pakistani militants it blames for recent attacks inside the country.
Islamabad did not say in precisely which areas the strikes were carried out or provide other details. There was no immediate comment from Kabul, and reports on social media suggested the strikes were carried out inside Afghanistan.
In comments before dawn Sunday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar wrote on X that the military conducted what he described as “intelligence-based, selective operations” against seven camps belonging to the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and its affiliates. He said an affiliate of the Daesh group was also targeted in the border region.
In October, Pakistan also conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.
Tarar said Pakistan “has always strived to maintain peace and stability in the region,” but added that the safety and security of Pakistani citizens remained a top priority.
The latest development came days after a suicide bomber, backed by gunmen, rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the wall of a security post in Bajaur district in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. The blast caused part of the compound to collapse, killing 11 soldiers and a child, and authorities later said the attacker was an Afghan national.
Hours before the latest border strikes, another suicide bomber targeted a security convoy in the nearby Bannu district in the northwest, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel. After Saturday’s violence, Pakistan’s military had warned that it would not “exercise any restraint” and that operations against those responsible would continue “irrespective of their location,” language that suggested rising tensions between Islamabad and Kabul.
Tarar said Pakistan had “conclusive evidence” that the recent attacks , including a suicide bombing that targeted a Shiite mosque in Islamabad and killed 31 worshippers earlier this month, were carried out by militants acting on the “behest of their Afghanistan-based leadership and handlers.”
He said Pakistan had repeatedly urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to take verifiable steps to prevent militant groups from using Afghan territory to launch attacks in Pakistan, but alleged that no substantive action had been taken.
He said Pakistan urges the international community to press Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities to uphold their commitments under the Doha agreement not to allow their soil to be used against other countries.
Pakistan has seen a surge in militant violence in recent years, much of it blamed on the TTP and outlawed Baloch separatist groups. The TTP is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, who returned to power in 2021. Islamabad accuses the TTP of operating from inside Afghanistan, a charge both the group and Kabul deny.
Relations between the neighboring countries have remained tense since October, when deadly border clashes killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan.
A Qatar-mediated ceasefire has largely held, but talks in Istanbul failed to produce a formal agreement, and relations remain strained.
