Category Archives: Bangladesh

Two Bangladeshi opposition leaders arrested in government crackdown

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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.

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How many migrant workers have died in Qatar? What we know about the human cost of the 2022 World Cup

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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.

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US blogger’s killers escape on motorbikes from Bangladeshi court

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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.

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Qatar facing renewed calls to compensate migrant workers over uninvestigated deaths

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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.

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World has left Bangladesh to shelter 1m Rohingya refugees alone, says minister

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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.

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Cyclone Sitrang: 24 dead as Bangladesh seeks to restore power to millions

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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.

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‘Give workers an equal seat’: pressure builds for Levi’s to protect factory employees

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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.

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Rohingya crisis: plight of Myanmar’s displaced people explained in 30 seconds

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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.

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Uprooted by partition: ‘I feel I don’t belong in England. I’m a very proud Punjabi’

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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.

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Third member of Cardiff family dies from ‘poisoning’ in Bangladesh

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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.

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Shock in Cardiff after ‘poisoning’ of father and son in Bangladesh

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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.

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Bangladesh to hold talks with IMF after applying for bailout

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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.

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Genocide case against Myanmar over Rohingya atrocities cleared to proceed

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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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At least 59 dead and millions stranded as floods devastate India and Bangladesh

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Lightning kills 21 and millions of homes submerged while armed forces asked to help amid continuing storms

At least 59 people died as floods cut a swatch across north-eastern India and Bangladesh, leaving millions of homes underwater, authorities said on Saturday.

In India’s Assam state, 18 people died in the floods or landslides and 2 million others had seen their homes submerged in flood waters since Thursday, the state disaster management agency said.

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BBC to pay £30,000 to Bangladeshi Labour councillor for identity mix-up

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Liza Begum said confusion with Apsana Begum who was acquitted of fraud charges ‘reflects notion all people of colour look the same’

The BBC has agreed to pay £30,000 in damages to a British Bangladeshi Labour councillor after it mixed her up with Apsana Begum in a news item about the MP facing housing fraud charges.

Pictures of Liza Begum at an event to launch Labour’s 2019 race and faith manifesto were broadcast on BBC London News during an exchange on 29 October 2020, in which the BBC London political correspondent said: “This is Apsana Begum … she faces three charges of dishonesty.”

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At least 49 killed and hundreds injured in Bangladesh depot fire

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Huge blaze breaks out at container storage facility 40km from country’s main sea port, Chittagong, with toll expected to rise further

At least 49 people died and hundreds have been injured after a fire tore through a shipping container depot in Bangladesh, sparking a huge chemical explosion that engulfed many of those who had rushed to the scene to help. The death toll is expected to rise.

More than 300 people were injured in the incident, many of whom sustained life-threatening burns, and many bodies remain unrecovered as the fire continued to blaze for a second night in Sitakunda, near the busy southern port of Chittagong.

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Dozens dead, millions stranded as floods ravage Bangladesh and India

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Rains inundate thousands of villages and trigger landslides in north-east Bangladesh’s worst flooding in nearly two decades

Heavy rains have caused widespread flooding in parts of Bangladesh and India, leaving millions stranded and at least 57 dead, officials say.

In Bangladesh, about 2 million people have been marooned by the worst floods in the country’s north-east for nearly two decades.

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UK Foreign Office rushed £4.2bn of aid cuts, official audit finds

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Support slashed despite warnings about impact, with offices told not to discuss plans with local partners, says National Audit Office report

The British government forced through £4.2bn in aid cuts so quickly it had little time to plan the impact they would have, or consult partners, according to an official audit.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said bilateral spending – aid given directly to another government – faced some of the harshest cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – 53% compared with less than a third of the overall aid budget – because of political and legal commitments to multilateral spending.

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Revealed: migrant workers in Qatar forced to pay billions in recruitment fees

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Guardian investigation finds labourers – including those on World Cup-related projects – were left with huge debts

Low-wage migrant workers have been forced to pay billions of dollars in recruitment fees to secure their jobs in World Cup host nation Qatar over the past decade, a Guardian investigation has found.

Bangladeshi men migrating to Qatar are likely to have paid about $1.5bn (£1.14bn) in fees, and possibly as high as $2bn, between 2011 and 2020. Nepali men are estimated to have paid around $320m, and possibly more than $400m, in the four years between mid-2015 to mid-2019.

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Rohingya refugees welcome US decision to call Myanmar atrocities a genocide

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Refugees ‘very happy’ with declaration, while experts say ‘concrete steps’ must follow

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have welcomed the announcement by the US that it considers the violent repression of their largely Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar a genocide.

“We are very happy on the declaration of the genocide; many many thanks,” said 60-year-old Sala Uddin, who lives at Kutupalong camp, one of the many in Cox’s Bazar district that are now home to about 1 million Rohingya.

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