At dusk, thunder rolls across the hills that divide Bangladesh from Myanmar. But the sound is not from rain. It is gunfire — faint, rhythmic bursts echoing across the Naf River, carrying from a war that is creeping ever closer.
In the rice fields of Naikhongchhari and the muddy banks of Tumbru, villagers now sleep to the percussion of conflict. Fishermen moor their boats early. And from both sides, propaganda — as relentless as the gunfire — fills the air.
The border dividing Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar and Bandarban districts from Myanmar’s Rakhine, or Arakan, has turned volatile. Two Rohingya armed groups — the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO) — have been engaged in fierce battles with the Arakan Army (AA), the dominant Rakhine ethnic militia waging war against Myanmar’s military since November 2023.
The Arakan Army has vowed to seize full control of Rakhine State, including its capital, Sittwe, and Kyaukphyu — a strategic hub that hosts energy pipelines and a deep-sea port crucial to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as a major Indian-backed port project. Each faction brands the other as “terrorists,” insisting it alone is protecting its people.
Bangladesh, already sheltering more than a million Rohingya people, is once again trapped in the middle.
In a statement issued on 21 September, the RSO accused the Arakan Army of “intolerable crimes” against Rohingya and other minorities — killings, looting, sexual violence, and forced displacement — and dismissed the group’s portrayal of the RSO as an “Islamic extremist organisation” as “slanderous and fabricated.”
Days later, the Arakan Army’s political wing, the United League of Arakan (ULA), responded with its own statement. It accused the RSO and ARSA of “terrorist operations” launched from bases inside Bangladesh, with help, it claimed, from “corrupt officers” in the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). It alleged that Bangladeshi territory was being used for infiltration, ambushes, and drone surveillance.
Bangladesh has rejected those accusations as “politically motivated,” but security officials acknowledge an escalation. In recent weeks, exchanges of gunfire and mortar rounds have been reported on the other side of the Naikhongchhari-Tumbru area, forcing several border villages to live in fear.
Alarmingly, on October 11 Statement the ULA warns that if the Bangladesh interim government is unable to enforce discipline and control extremist-supporting factions within its military, this could pose a terrorist threat not only to the Bangladesh region but also to the security and stability of the border and the ASEAN region.
“We hear the shooting every night now,” said a Bangladeshi farmer reached by phone from Tumbru. “The soldiers stay inside after dark. We just pray no stray bullet finds us.”
The Naf River — a narrow ribbon of water that once separated two states — has become the thinnest of buffers between two wars.
On the Myanmar side, the Arakan Army has gained control over most of Rakhine State, wresting territory from the junta but deepening ethnic divisions. Rohingya residents say they live in fear of both the military and Rakhine militias. On the Bangladesh side, the refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar are swelling again as families flee the new violence.
Diplomats warn that if the clashes continue, the region could see another wave of displacement — and possibly the spillover of Myanmar’s war into Bangladesh’s borderlands.
“This is no longer just a refugee crisis,” said a Dhaka-based analyst who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It’s becoming a multi-sided proxy conflict on Bangladesh’s doorstep.”
The battle for Rakhine State is not just local. It lies at the heart of an intensifying contest between China and India, each with billion-dollar interests in the Bay of Bengal.
For Beijing, Rakhine is a critical node in the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) — a network of highways, pipelines, and ports that provide China direct access to the Indian Ocean. The deep-sea port of Kyaukphyu, now under construction, anchors that vision.
Chinese state firms have maintained working relations with both the junta and the Arakan Army, ensuring that construction continues despite the fighting.
India, meanwhile, finds itself cornered. Its own flagship project — the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Corridor — runs through Chin and Rakhine states, both engulfed in conflict. New Delhi has sought quiet ties with local groups to safeguard its routes, but the surge of violence along Bangladesh’s border threatens to disrupt its broader connectivity ambitions.
China is pursuing influence through infrastructure, India is seeking security through access, and Bangladesh is struggling to preserve peace — yet all three are falling short of their goals.
Bangladesh’s interim government faces its toughest foreign policy test ever. It has pledged not to allow any militant group to operate from its territory, but managing a 270-kilometer porous border — lined with forests, rivers, and refugee settlements — has proved nearly impossible.
Security forces in Bandarban have reported a rise in bullet exchange, while aid workers in Cox’s Bazar warn that the refugee camps — already fraught with gang violence — risk becoming fertile ground for armed group recruitment. Local residents of Teknaf and Ukhiya have privately acknowledged the growing concern that if the fighting continues to spread north, the country could be drawn into the conflict despite its efforts to stay out.
Bangladesh has repeatedly appealed to the international community and ASEAN partners for diplomatic intervention, yet Myanmar’s civil war has splintered so deeply that conventional mediation efforts no longer hold sway.
Every faction now casts itself as a victim and a liberator. The RSO & ARSA say they fight for the Rohingya’s survival. The Arakan Army claims to defend Rakhine sovereignty against “terrorists.” The junta, weakened but calculating, benefits from letting its enemies exhaust one another.
Meanwhile, the frontier grows more dangerous. Soldiers patrol riverbanks under searchlights. Refugees wait for nightfall to cross. And residents on both sides listen for the sound that now defines their lives — the muted thud of war just over the hill.
For Bangladesh, the stakes could not be higher. Another influx of refugees could strain its fragile economy; another misfire across the border could ignite a regional crisis. For China and India, the conflict is a measure of influence and a warning of how quickly local wars can become strategic ones.
This border is no longer just a line on a map, it’s the fault line between power houses and the people caught in the middle are paying the price.
