Bangladesh-Myanmar row continues

Bangladesh-Myanmar row continues

TEKNAF, Bangladesh (AP): Schools closed and thousands of villagers fled their frontier homes on Monday after Bangladesh and Myanmar reinforced troops in a dispute over building of an embankment on a river shared by the two neighbors.

The weekend buildup came after border troops of the two countries exchanged fire over Myanmar's construction of the embankment on the River Naaf.

Myanmar halted the construction after Dhaka's protests. But Myanmar continued to bring in army troops along its border since the clashes, said Bangladesh army officers.

"We have reports that Myanmar has deployed more than 25,000 army troops along the border. We, too, are ready to confront if they attack us," Col. Shawkat Ali, a commander of the Bangladesh border guards, told reporters on Monday.

About 2,500 people who left their farming villages of Ulubunia, Anjumanpara, Totatuli and Katakhali on Sunday and Monday to live with relatives or in school buildings.

Some families sent women and children away while men stayed back to guard the property.

There is an undeclared curfew along the Myanmar side of the border because of the troop movement, he said.

Bangladesh has offered to hold a meeting between senior commanders of both countries, he said.

Ali refused to disclose the number of Bangladeshi troops deployed along a part of the 500-kilometer border.

Many of the Bangladeshi border guards have taken positions in school buildings, which are empty because villagers have fled during the past few days.

"We are taking no risk," said Abul Hossain, 40, a farmer, while leaving his village, Anjumanpara, on Monday, along with his wife and three children.

The family was carrying bedding to use while staying in a relative's house five kilometers inside the frontier, 320 kilometers south of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital.