Myanmar has reportedly been laying landmines across a section of its border with Bangladesh, said two government sources in Dhaka, adding that the purpose may have been to prevent the return of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence, Reuters reported.

However, the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Bangladesh will on Wednesday formally lodge a protest against the laying of land mines so close to the border.

Following an army crackdown on Rohingya insurgents in August, at least 400 people and about 125,000 Muslim-minority Rohingyas have fled to neighboring Bangladesh – leading to what many have said is a major humanitarian crisis, Reuters reported. 

The Myanmar sources said: “They are putting the landmines in their territory along the barbed-wire fence.” 

“Our forces have also seen three to four groups working near the barbed wire fence, putting something into the ground,” one of the sources said. “We then confirmed with our informers that they were laying land mines.”

Already it appears that there have been casualties after a boy had his left leg blown off near a border crossing. He was taken to Bangladesh for treatment, reported Reuters. Manzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer, told Reuters that two explosions were heard in the area on Monday. 

Myanmar army has not commented on the blasts near the border. Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar’s State Councilor, Aung San Suu Kyi, was not immediately available for comment.

Myanmar, which was under military rule until recently and is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, is one of the few countries that have not signed the 1997 U.N. Mine Ban Treaty, reported Reuters. 

This is the deadliest violence for decades in the area and the military is accused of atrocities against the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority, tens of thousands of whom have fled burning villages to neighboring Bangladesh.

On Tuesday, Nobel Prize winner and education activist Malala Yousafzai said the violence must stop.

Yousafzai, who survived an attack by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012, called on Myanmar’s leader and fellow Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to resolve the crisis.

“Every time I see the news, my heart breaks at the suffering of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,” she said in a statement. “Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”

Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has also come under increasing international pressure to resolve the humanitarian crisis engulfing Rakhine state. 

The Nobel peace prize laureate is facing severe criticism over her government’s treatment of about 1.1 million Rohingya, and over her silence in this regard.

Some countries have gone as far as calling for her to return her Nobel Peace Prize.