1 BGB trooper killed: Myanmar

A Myanmar border police officer has confirmed that a member of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) was killed by his unit during a border skirmish on Wednesday. ‘One from the other side [Bangladesh] was killed by our police force when a clash broke out on May 28,’ Tun Oo, a police colonel in Sittwe, Arakan State, told Myanmar’s new portal, Irrawaddy on Friday. ‘After the clash, we have had ongoing negotiations and there is no problem.’ But Bangladesh media reported a fresh clash between the two border forces on Friday afternoon. The BGB man was killed between border posts 52 and 53, about 30 miles from Maungdaw Township, the Myanmar Border police colonel said. But he provided no details of the dead border guard’s identity. Clashes involving Myanmar police along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border have been increasingly reported in recent months. An Arakan State spokesman confirmed last week that four border guard police officers were killed after a gunfight on May 17 with an unidentified armed group along the border. The Burmese government has undertaken an effort to fence in the porous border on the country’s western flank, saying it is necessary to protect Burma’s sovereignty and prevent illegal border crossings from Bangladesh. No one was available for comment at the Bangladesh Embassy in Yangon on Friday, according to bdnews24.com.