Villagers living along Bangladesh’s border with conflict-ridden Myanmar are losing limbs to landmines, becoming unintended victims of a war spilling into their forests and farmlands.
In the dense hill jungles near the border, residents recount harrowing encounters with hidden explosives. One villager described how a routine trip into the forest with others ended in disaster when a sudden blast tore off his leg. Neighbours rushed to stop the bleeding, collected his severed limb, and carried him to hospital.
In Ashartoli, a small settlement in Bandarban district, the weapons of a foreign conflict have transformed forests, farms, and footpaths into deadly zones. Bangladesh’s 271-kilometre (168-mile) eastern border with Myanmar runs through rivers and thick woodland, much of it unmarked and crossed daily by villagers gathering firewood or engaging in small-scale trade, as their families have done for generations.
Myanmar is considered the world’s most dangerous country for landmine casualties, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which has documented a “massive” and growing use of the banned weapons. The group recorded more than 2,000 casualties in Myanmar in 2024, double the number reported the previous year.
In its Landmine Monitor report, the organization said mine use rose sharply in 2024–2025, with a notable increase in victims near the Bangladesh border. Fighters from the Arakan Army, one of several groups opposing Myanmar’s ruling junta, control large stretches of jungle across the frontier.
More than one million Rohingya refugees who fled Myanmar are also living in Bangladesh’s border regions, caught between the military and separatist forces. In November, a Bangladeshi border guard was killed when a landmine blast severed both his legs.
While Bangladesh’s border force has erected warning signs, raised red flags, and conducts regular mine-clearing operations, villagers say such measures offer little protection when survival requires entering forests littered with explosives—leaving border communities to bear the human cost of a war not their own.
