Officials say death toll could rise as rescue operation continues in southeastern town of Sitakunda
At least six people were killed and several injured on Saturday when a fire broke out after an explosion at an oxygen plant in southeastern Bangladesh, officials said.
The death toll could rise as a rescue operation was ongoing at the plant at Sitakunda, 40km (25 miles) from the south-eastern port city of Chittagong, they added.
Continue reading...Campaigners fear media crackdown under PM Sheikh Hasina after suspension order upheld
The only newspaper of Bangladesh’s main opposition party has stopped publishing after a government suspension order was upheld, stoking fears about media freedom in the south Asian nation.
Campaigners and foreign governments including the US have long expressed worries about efforts by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to silence criticism and what they see as creeping authoritarianism.
Continue reading...World Food Programme calls for urgent $125m injection after being forced into axing supplies into Bangladesh refugee camps by 17%
The UN has been forced to cut food rations for Rohingya refugees by 17% and has warned of “unconscionable” further cuts in April as a result of dwindling international donations.
The World Food Programme (WFP) said it needs $125m (£104m) urgently to avoid the further cuts.
Continue reading...UN figures show number of those attempting to escape horrendous conditions in refugee camps increased from 700 in 2021 to over 3,500 in 2022
The number of Rohingya refugees taking dangerous sea journeys in the hope of reaching Malaysia or Indonesia has surged by 360%, the UN has announced after hundreds of refugees were left stranded at the end of last year.
Rohingya in Bangladesh refugee camps have warned that human smugglers have ramped up operations and are constantly searching for people to fill boats from Myanmar and Bangladesh headed for Malaysia, where people believe they can live more freely.
Continue reading...Woman recounts suffering on perilous journeys taken to escape oppression in Myanmar and squalid Bangladesh camps
Hatemon Nesa recalled hugging her young daughter tightly as the cramped, broken-down boat they were sitting on drifted aimlessly. They had set off on 25 November from the squalid Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, where they had lived since 2017, when a brutal crackdown by Myanmar’s military forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border.
The 27-year-old, like many other Rohingya refugees, was hoping for a better life in Malaysia. But about 10 days into the journey the boat’s engine stopped working and food and water supplies began to run out.
Continue reading...Contact lost for weeks with vessel that left camps in Bangladesh and was crossing Andaman Sea bound for Malaysia
About 180 Rohingya refugees are feared to have died after their boat went missing in the Andaman Sea, making 2022 one of the deadliest years for the refugees trying to flee the camps in Bangladesh.
In a statement on Sunday, the United Nations said it was concerned that a boat carrying the refugees, which had left the camps in the Bangladeshi city of Cox’s Bazar on 2 December bound for Malaysia, had sunk with no survivors, which would make it one of the worst disasters for Rohingya sea crossings this year.
Continue reading...Vessel thought to have embarked from Bangladesh is reportedly near Malaysia with 160 people onboard who have no food or water
Activists have called for urgent assistance to rescue 160 Rohingya refugees, including young children, who they say are stranded at sea on a damaged boat and have been without food or water for days.
The boat, which activists say is near Malaysian waters, is believed to have left on 25 November from Bangladesh, where almost 1 million Rohingya live in squalid and cramped refugee camps.
Continue reading...Seven killed and thousands arrested as Hasina regime continues repressive campaign against opponents
Two top leaders of Bangladesh’s main opposition party have been arrested amid a violent crackdown on government opponents during which at least seven people have been shot dead and thousands arrested.
Over recent weeks, Sheikh Hasina’s government has launched a repressive campaign against the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP), which has been holding rallies calling for her resignation.
Continue reading...This year’s tournament has been dominated by off-field matters. We look at the issues around the labor used to build the tournament’s infrastructure
The deaths of migrant workers in Qatar in the build-up to this year’s World Cup have drawn criticism across the world. While the tournament’s organizers put the official count at 40, estimates by the Guardian put the figure in the thousands. Here we explore the key questions around an issue that has tarnished the World Cup for many fans.
Continue reading...Men on death row for murder of secular writer snatched by bikers who sprayed police with chemical
Two Islamist militants who were on death row in Bangladesh for the killing of a US blogger critical of fundamentalist Islam have made a dramatic escape on motorbikes while being escorted to a court hearing in the capital, Dhaka.
The two men were among those convicted of the murder of Avijit Roy, an American-Bangladeshi writer and blogger who was hacked to death with machetes in the streets of Dhaka in 2015.
Continue reading...Bereaved families of workers and rights groups want World Cup organisers to make £372m payout
Qatar is facing renewed calls from migrant workers, their families, and rights groups to compensate for human rights abuses including wage theft, injuries and uninvestigated deaths, days before the World Cup kicks off.
As fans and footballers descend on the Persian Gulf country for the month-long tournament, workers and their families, who have spent 12 years sounding the alarm on exploitative conditions endured while building the tournament’s infrastructure, are seeking an amount equivalent to the $440m (£372m) World Cup prize money for a remediation programme.
Continue reading...Shahriar Alam criticises international community for doing ‘absolutely nothing’ to press Myanmar’s junta to guarantee a safe return
The world has done “absolutely nothing” to ensure safety in Myanmar for its persecuted Rohingya minority, said Bangladesh’s foreign minister, complaining that his country is sheltering more than 1 million refugees without support.
Foreign minister Shahriar Alam told the Guardian financial support for the Rohingya has decreased each year and there has been no real progress towards repatriation in the five years since more than 700,000 fled massacres by Myanmar’s military. That wave, in August 2017, joined approximately 300,000 people that had already fled Myanmar because of previous security crackdowns.
Continue reading...Nearly 10,000 homes were destroyed or damaged by storm that flooded cities and forced a million to evacuate
At least 24 people have died and millions were without power after Cyclone Sitrang struck Bangladesh, forcing the evacuation of about a million people.
Most of the deaths were from falling trees, police and government officials said, with two dying in the north on the Jamuna river when their boat sank. A Myanmar national working on a ship also died by falling off the deck, an official said.
Continue reading...Activists say that the company’s own audits have been ineffective and workers receive inadequate safety protections
Workers and activists have been campaigning to push Levi’s, one of the world’s largest clothing brands, to sign on to an international accord for workers’ health and safety in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment clothing factories, collapsed, killing 1,134 people and injuring approximately 2,500, in the deadliest disaster in the garment industry’s history.
Continue reading...One million Rohingya remain in Bangladesh refugee camps and the persecuted group has little hope of returning to Myanmar
It has been five years since Myanmar’s military launched a campaign of massacres that killed about 7,000 Rohingya in a single month and compelled 700,000 to flee for the Bangladeshi border.
Since the first major military operation against the Rohingya minority in 1978, which forced out 200,000, the Rohingya have been collectively stripped of their citizenship and targeted by increasing violence and discrimination that culminated in the “clearance operations” that began on 25 August 2017. Those operations were years in the planning, according to military documents uncovered by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability and sent to the international criminal court.
Continue reading...Impact of ‘traumatic period’ still lingers with those now based in UK – and their families – 75 years on
After living in Britain for nearly half a century, Pabitra Ghosh is still gripped by a rootlessness borne after being displaced from modern-day Bangladesh as a child.
When a communal riot broke out in 1950, Ghosh, then five, fled with his family across the newly carved Indian border from East Pakistan. The train journey was both “bedlam” and “traumatic” as they abandoned their home to start afresh in Kolkata.
Continue reading...Death of Samira Islam, 20, follows deaths of Rafiqul, 51, and Mahiqul, 16, during holiday
A woman has become the latest family member of a British family of five on holiday in Bangladesh to die from a suspected poisoning.
Samira Islam, 20, died on Friday after she was discovered unconscious in a locked room by police officers on 26 July. Her father, Rafiqul Islam, 51, a taxi driver, and his 16-year-old son, Mahiqul, also died in the rented flat in the eastern city of Sylhet.
Continue reading...Rafiqul Islam, 51, and Mahiqul, 16, found dead with three unconscious relatives while on two-month visit
Police investigating the apparent poisoning of a British family of five on holiday in Bangladesh, which killed a father and son, are hoping the survivors could hold the key to what happened.
Rafiqul Islam, 51, a taxi driver from Cardiff, and his son, 16-year-old Mahiqul, along with three other members of their family, were discovered unconscious in a locked room by police officers on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Dhaka is understood to be seeking $4.5bn rescue package after being hit by high import costs and falling exports
Bangladesh is to hold talks with the International Monetary Fund after applying for a bailout to prevent the country running out of cash.
The government in Dhaka – the third in south Asia to seek a financial rescue package from the IMF after Pakistan and Sri Lanka – is understood to want $4.5bn (£3.7bn) after it was hit hard by high import prices, especially for gas, and a fall in exports as the global economy slowed down.
Continue reading...UN’s international court of justice rejects arguments advanced by military junta over crackdowns against Muslim minority group
The United Nations’ highest court has rejected Myanmar’s attempts to halt a case accusing it of genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, paving the way for evidence of atrocities to be heard.
The international court of justice rejected all preliminary objections raised by Myanmar, which is now ruled by a military junta, at a hearing on Friday.
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