The skirmish happened close to Ronwagnchhari, a city shut to vacationers since October when safety forces launched a crackdown in opposition to the Kuki-Chin Nationwide Entrance, a newly emerged insurgent group.
(Reuters Archive)
Not less than eight folks have been killed throughout a gunfight between two tribal rebel teams at a distant city in Bangladesh’s restive Chittagong hills, police mentioned.
Native police chief Tariqul Islam advised AFP two rival armed teams clashed on Thursday night time and officers recovered the lifeless our bodies of eight tribal folks on Friday morning.
“They have been killed in a gun battle,” Islam advised AFP, including that round 60 folks had fled their houses in Khamtangpara village the place the assault happened.
The skirmish happened close to Ronwagnchhari, a city shut to vacationers since October when safety forces launched a crackdown in opposition to the Kuki-Chin Nationwide Entrance (KNF), a newly emerged insurgent group.
The operation has displaced lots of of tribal folks, with some strolling for days to cross the border and take refuge in a distant nook of northeastern India.
READ MORE: Huge hearth guts hundreds of retailers in Bangladesh’s Dhaka
Two-decade-long insurgency
One other district police officer, who spoke on situation of anonymity advised AFP that the victims have been Bawm, a small Christian tribal group.
They have been suspected members of the KNF that had been shot lifeless by a splinter faction of one other armed group, the United Individuals’s Democratic Entrance.
Final month, the Bangladesh Military accused the KNF of killing one in every of its troops and injuring one other.
The elite Speedy Motion Battalion (RAB) police unit additionally accuses the KNF of harbouring and coaching armed spiritual extremists.
Working by way of Bangladesh’s southeast, the Chittagong hills have been the positioning of a two-decade-long insurgency that killed hundreds of civilians.
The battle formally got here to an finish with a 1997 peace deal, however no less than six armed teams proceed to function within the space, based on police.
READ MORE: Lethal explosion kills over a dozen folks in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka
Supply: AFP