Fighting between Myanmar's junta and the Arakan Army (AA) rebel group in western Myanmar's Rakhine state has intensified. Casualties have also been recorded in Bangladesh, with two people killed by an errant mortar round this month and several injured by gunshots from across the border. Rebel fighters have recently taken control of the Myanmar border region, and are seeking to oust junta forces from elsewhere in the state.

This comes as a heavy blow for the Myanmar's ruling junta, which seized power in February 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi to find itself embroiled in a wide-scale civil war.

The Arakan Army is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority that seeks autonomy from Myanmar's central government. It has been attacking army outposts in Rakhine state since November 2023.

Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country, which shares a 271-kilometer (168 miles) border with Buddhist-dominated Myanmar.

Bangladesh is also the home of more than a million mostly Muslim Rohingya refugees, which have been fleeing Myanmar for decades, and especially after Myanmar launched a brutal "clearance operation" in Rakhine state against them in 2017.

Talking to DW, several Rohingya refugees in the coastal Bangladeshi town of Cox's Bazar commented on the success of the AA rebels with skepticism. They do not believe that predominantly Buddhist rebel force is willing to do much to improve their fate, even if the........

© Deutsche Welle