A Teknaf-based journalist who took photographs of the boats said the vessels came close to a pier in the town but were pushed back towards Myanmar later in the night.
“Some of them were not wearing any shirts,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Months of fierce fighting in Myanmar have seen steady advances by the AA in the western state of Rakhine, piling further pressure on the junta as it battles opponents elsewhere in the country.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders last month announced it was halting all activities near the state’s border with Bangladesh due to an “extreme escalation of conflict” in the area.
Bangladesh has accepted more than 850 fleeing Myanmar soldiers this year, a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
“We have already handed over 752 of them to Myanmar,” he said, adding around 100 border police and troops were waiting to be repatriated.
Bangladesh is home to around one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled Rakhine in 2017 after a military crackdown now the subject of a genocide investigation at a UN court.
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