Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes

Rohingya refugees sell vegetables from a roadside stall at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia on Sunday. The refugees live in squalid conditions, where hope is a fragile but persistent force. (AFP)
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Updated 13 January 2026
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Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes

  • A dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned the ambassador of Myanmar after civil war gun battles in the neighboring country spilled over the border, wounding a Bangladeshi girl.

Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state this month has involved junta soldiers, Arakan Army fighters and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militia guerrillas.

Authorities said around a dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence.

Twelve-year-old Huzaifa Afnan was struck by a bullet, while a Bangladeshi fisherman had his leg ripped off after stepping on a landmine near the frontier.

“Bangladesh reminded that the unprovoked firing towards Bangladesh is a blatant violation of international law and a hindrance to good neighborly relations,” a Foreign Ministry press statement said.

Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, U Kyaw Soe Moe, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, where he expressed sincere sympathy to the injured victims and their families.

“My daughter was supposed to go to school, but she is on a ventilator,” Afnan’s father Jasim Uddin said. “My heart is bleeding for my baby girl.”

More than a million Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, many after a 2017 military crackdown, and now eke out a living in sprawling refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh.

ARSA, a Rohingya armed group formed to defend the persecuted Muslim minority, has been fighting the Myanmar military, as well as rival Arakan Army guerrillas.

On Monday, Bangladeshi border forces detained 53 ARSA fighters who had crossed the frontier.

Bangladeshi police officer Saiful Islam, commander of the local Teknaf station, said all detainees were being held in jail, except one fighter who was receiving hospital treatment for bullet wounds.

“These individuals have a history of living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and crossing into Myanmar,” Islam told AFP.


Bus plunges into ravine in Bolivia, killing at least 10

Updated 6 sec ago
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Bus plunges into ravine in Bolivia, killing at least 10

  • The crash occurred near the community of Putina Cotamasa
  • Emergency teams evacuated survivors and rushed them to hospitals

LA PAZ: At least 10 people were killed and several others seriously injured when a bus plunged about 100 meters (330 feet) into a ravine on Thursday night in Bolivia’s highlands, police said.
The crash occurred near the community of Putina Cotamasa, in Camacho ⁠province north of the capital La Paz, and prompted residents and local authorities to work hours on rescue efforts.
Images broadcast by local television stations ⁠and circulated on social media showed the scale of the disaster, including bodies of victims and injured passengers, among them minors.
Emergency teams evacuated survivors and rushed them to hospitals in La Paz, local media said. The cause of the ⁠crash was under investigation.
Such accidents are common in Bolivia, where conditions in rugged Andean terrain and along dirt roads linking cities with rural communities often worsen during the rainy season.