Families tell how advances in healthcare and nutrition are helping to cut infant mortality rates
Continue reading...Category Archives: Bangladesh
‘I want to tell of our suffering’: comms crackdown puts Rohingya on mute
The Bangladeshi government is making life hard for young people trying to document levels of hardship in the world’s largest refugee settlement
For Azimul Hassan, 19, life before he entered the world’s largest refugee settlement was always busy.
He would wake early to visit his private tutor before school, then work late every evening to finish his homework. On Fridays, he would play football with friends – he was a striker.
Continue reading...Indian citizenship law discriminatory to Muslims passed
Bill will allow refugees from nearby states to become Indian but not if they are Muslims
Indian lawmakers have approved legislation granting citizenship to migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – but not if they are Muslim. Critics of the government said the legislation undermines the country’s secular constitution, as protests against the law intensified in some parts of the country.
The citizenship amendment bill seeks to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled the three countries before 2015.
Continue reading...‘My dignity is destroyed’: the scourge of sexual violence in Cox’s Bazar
With rape and domestic abuse endemic in the lawless refugee camp, safe spaces have been set up to help the women affected
In a small, dark hut within the world’s largest refugee settlement, a fan hums quietly as Faizal speaks. He says that last month his 12-year-old sister was raped here in their home. The little girl sits in silence beside him wearing a pink headscarf and red dress.
Rape is endemic in the camp in Cox’s Bazar. Although the exact number of victims is unknown, many Rohingya women who experienced rape and torture fleeing Myanmar report facing sexual violence again in their new home.
Continue reading...Bangladesh flies in planeloads of onions amid national outcry over shortage
Even the prime minister has chopped the vegetable out of her official menu after monsoon caused Indian crop failure
Bangladesh has been forced to import planeloads of onions as the price of the cooking staple soared to record highs, an official said, with even the prime minister chopping the bulb from her menu.
The price of onions – a sensitive subject in south Asia where shortages can trigger widespread discontent with political ramifications – has climbed to eye-watering levels in Bangladesh since neighbouring India banned exports in late September after heavy monsoon rains reduced the crop.
Continue reading...‘We lay like corpses’: Bangladesh’s 1970s rape camp survivors speak out | Lucy Lamble
Award-winning documentary Rising Silence preserves the testimony of some of the 200,000 women abducted during the country’s war of independence
In 1971, during the nine-month war that gave Bangladesh its independence from then West Pakistan, four sisters – Amina, Maleka, Mukhlesa and Budhi Begum – were abducted by Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators. They were among the more than 200,000 women held in rape camps and were detained for two and a half months.
“Twenty-two of us would lie like corpses in that room,” says Maleka as she explains how her elder sister Buhdi, “unable to bear the pain”, died before they were released.
Continue reading...‘Our only aim is to go home’: Rohingya refugees face stark choice in Bangladesh
With citizenship in Myanmar still denied, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh must either live under severe restrictions or move to an isolated island
Life in the world’s largest refugee camp has grown harder in the past few months. Mohammad, a Rohingya farmer who lost his leg fleeing violence in Myanmar, does not understand why.
“We got a lot more before in terms of food and help, but now it feels like we are not getting enough support from the government and NGOs. We are also more restricted in our movement,” he says, sitting on a bench outside his house, surrounded by discarded plastic bottles and rotting food.
The Bangladeshi government has launched a crackdown in the camp, shutting shops run by refugees, blocking internet services, confiscating mobile phones, putting up fencing and setting an 8pm curfew, meaning people can’t leave their homes at night.
Bangladesh appears to be getting frustrated with its more than 1 million guests. Politics is turning and it has been reported that locals in Cox’s Bazar are running out of patience. The government is finalising plans to move 100,000 refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal and refugees wonder if it is all connected.
The state minister of foreign affairs, Shahriar Alam, said fencing was being put up for security reasons. “As far as the internet is concerned, 2G is still available. Due to the credible security concerns, [the] government has kept the internet access limited,” he says.
Continue reading...Nusrat Jahan Rafi: 16 sentenced to death over Bangladesh murder
Student set on fire after refusing to withdraw sexual harassment claim against headteacher
Sixteen Bangladeshis have been sentenced to death for the murder of a 19-year-old student, Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was burned to death in April after complaining of being sexually harassed by her school principal.
Among those found guilty were former members of the school’s administration, teachers and pupils – 12 of the 16 having confessed to participating in the killing in which Rafi was lured on to the school’s roof, doused in paraffin and set alight.
Continue reading...Workers making £88 Lululemon leggings claim they are beaten
Exclusive: Upmarket brand, which has just launched UN partnership, opens investigation as female labourers in Bangladesh factory say they suffer regular abuse
Lululemon, an athleisure brand whose £88 leggings are worn by celebrities and Instagram influencers, are sourcing clothing from a factory where Bangladeshi female factory workers claim they are beaten and physically assaulted.
The Canadian brand recently launched a partnership with the United Nations to reduce stress levels and promote the mental health of aid workers.
Continue reading...Five-year-old boy among 30 Rohingya arrested for travelling in Myanmar
Nine children sent to juvenile detention centres as remainder of group face up to two years in prison for failure to produce ID cards
Myanmar faces calls to release 30 Rohingya men, women and children arrested in September while trying to travel from Rakhine state to the city of Yangon.
A total of 21 Rohingya face up to two years in jail under Myanmar’s Residents of Burma Registration Act, which stipulates that citizens must be in possession of “registration cards” to prove their identity.
Continue reading...How the Bangladeshi women who make our clothes are edging towards a better life | Fiona Weber-Steinhaus
The country has undergone an economic miracle in recent years, albeit at huge cost to its garment workers. But things are finally starting to improve for them
Tasnia Akter has come home. It’s a public holiday in Bangladesh, the one time of year the 25-year-old can leave the mayhem of the city behind and see her family: her mother, her aunt.
And her daughter.
Continue reading...Bangladesh imposes mobile phone blackout in Rohingya refugee camps
Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar face prospect of further isolation as government orders operators to shut down services
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps in Bangladesh face a communications blackout after the government ordered a ban on mobile phone services and sim cards.
The country’s telecommunications regulatory body cited security fears and illegal mobile use as it ordered operators to shut down services in the overcrowded camps in the south-eastern border district of Cox’s Bazar by next Sunday.
Continue reading...UN migration agency accused of pressuring Bangladeshis to return home
Complaint against International Organization of Migration of ‘severe concerns’ over treatment of rescued migrants in Tunisia
The UN migration agency is the subject of a formal complaint after “severe concerns” were raised about its treatment of Bangladeshi migrants, including children.
A Tunis-based NGO, Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES), filed a complaint to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) this month, after migrants alleged officials and diplomats had put pressure on them to return home following weeks at sea.
Continue reading...Rohingya refugees shot dead by Bangladesh police during gunfight
The two men had been accused of killing a ruling party official but activists say the shooting appeared to be staged
Two Rohingya refugees were shot dead by Bangladesh police during a gunfight in a refugee camp on Saturday after they were accused of killing a ruling party official, police said.
Nearly one million Rohingya live in squalid camps in southeast Bangladesh; 740,000 fled a 2017 military offensive against the Muslim minority in Myanmar.
Continue reading...‘Not without our rights’: Rohingya refugees refuse to return to Myanmar
Displaced families selected for repatriation say they will not go back, with lack of citizenship a sticking point
Muslim Rohingyas housed in sprawling refugee camps in Bangladesh are refusing to return to Myanmar, United Nations and local officials have said.
Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner, Abul Kalam, said on Tuesday that only 21 families out of 1,056 selected for repatriation were willing to be interviewed by officials about whether they wish to return.
Continue reading...Thousands left homeless after blaze destroys slum in Bangladesh – video
A fire swept through a crowded slum in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, destroying thousands of shanty homes. No one was killed. Many residents had left their homes to celebrate Eid al-Adha with their families, and some of those left homeless took refuge in schools closed for the holiday
• Bangladesh fire leaves 10,000 homeless
Continue reading...Bangladesh fire leaves 10,000 homeless after blaze razes slum
Fire broke out in Dhaka’s Mirpur district on Friday, destroying almost 2,000 tin shacks, officials say
At least 10,000 people are homeless after a massive fire swept through a crowded slum in the Bangladesh capital and destroyed thousands of shanties, officials said on Sunday.
The fire broke out at in Dhaka’s Mirpur neighbourhood late on Friday and razed around 2,000 mostly tin shacks, fire services official Ershad Hossain said.
Continue reading...Bangladesh: eight lynched over false rumours of child sacrifices
Police use loudspeakers to counter online reports that children were being killed for bridge-building project
Eight people have been killed in vigilante lynchings in Bangladesh, sparked by rumours on social media of children being kidnapped and sacrificed as offerings for the construction of a mega-bridge, police said on Wednesday.
The victims – who include two women – were targeted by angry mobs over the rumours, spread mostly on Facebook, that said human heads were required for the massive $3bn project, police chief Javed Patwary said in Dhaka. “We have analysed every single case of these eight killings. Those who were killed by lynching mobs – no one was a child kidnapper.”
Continue reading...Bangladesh prepares to move Rohingya to island at risk of floods and cyclones
Foreign affairs minister defends controversial proposal as ‘only solution’ despite misgivings of human rights campaigners
The first Rohingya refugees could be relocated to an island in the next few months under controversial plans drawn up by the Bangladesh government, the country’s state minister of foreign affairs has said.
Some of the nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees who fled a military crackdown in Myanmar and are now living in camps in Cox’s Bazar will be relocated to the silt island of Bhasan Char in the estuary of Bangladesh’s Meghna river, accessible only by boat.
Continue reading...Death toll from floods in south Asia rises to more than 100
Millions displaced in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, with Assam and Bihar among the worst-hit regions
More than 100 people have been killed and millions more affected by devastating floods and landslides across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
In the Indian state of Assam, among the worst hit areas, agencies were working on a war footing to deal with the situation, the chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, said.
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