Tropical cyclone Mocha intensified to become “very dangerous”, the World Meteorological Organisation has said, warning of violent winds, floods and possible landslides in Bangladesh which could hit the world’s biggest refugee camp in Cox’s bazar.
Cyclone Mocha is predicted to make landfall on Sunday near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, according to...
Read more: Cyclone Mocha threatens world’s largest refugee camp on Myanmar-Bangladesh border
Write comment (92 Comments)Hundreds of firefighters have been battling a fire that tore through a crowded shopping complex in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. Images from the scene showed black smoke billowing from the burning complex as firefighters worked to extinguish the fire. No deaths have been reported, but shop owners and fire officials told reporters that the famous...
Read more: 'It's all over': huge fire rips through Dhaka clothing market & video
Write comment (99 Comments)On his first day at high school, Khalid Hussain was accused of being the son of a war criminal. “A group of Bengali kids surrounded us and made it clear that we were not welcome. The incident still shocks me to this day,” says Hussain, who was 12 at the time. “But we just wanted to learn.”
It was not the last time Hussain, now a lawyer at the...
Read more: ‘We have a right to live in dignity’: Biharis in Bangladesh fight for equality – and jobs
Write comment (94 Comments)Hundreds of Bangladeshi firefighters have battled an inferno that raged through a popular clothing market in the capital, Dhaka, and covered the city’s oldest neighbourhoods in black smoke.
No deaths have been reported, but shop owners and fire officials told reporters that the famous Bongo Bazar and three adjacent markets had been gutted in the...
Read more: Bangladesh fire: 600 firefighters tackle blaze in huge Dhaka clothing market
Write comment (96 Comments)It was a warm afternoon in May 2020 when Ahmed Kabir Kishore, dozing lazily, awoke to 20 men breaking down the door of his apartment in Dhaka, Bangladesh. With guns waved in his face, he was dragged to a van outside. “Move away, we have arrested a terrorist,” he heard them shout at the crowds.
Kishore was not a terrorist. He was a cartoonist whose...
Read more: ‘They beat me with sticks’: Bangladesh opposition reels under crackdown as thousands held
Write comment (96 Comments)Hamida Khatun is sick of moving. The 60-year-old has been displaced about 20 times during her life, always as a result of climate disasters.“They seem to follow me wherever I go,” she says. But in 2019, the floods were the worst. “I thought at some point it would stop but it just kept rising and rising,” says Khatun. She saved herself from drownin...
Read more: ‘Peace of mind at last’: the Bangladeshi villagers digging their way out of the floods
Write comment (91 Comments)Some days, Abha Kujur, 39, feels like the family “servant”. The housework is unending at the tiny rented flat in New Delhi she shares with her husband and three children. Her son, Nitesh, 18, goes to college, and her daughters, Neha, 23, and Nisha, 20, work as apprentices, but Kujur’s daily grind is as busy as it ever was.
“When they were y...
Read more: ‘They are men … they do nothing’: inside the home lives of women around the world
Write comment (97 Comments)Four weeks ago, a reporter in Bangladesh was hauled from his office, badly beaten – and then thrown from the roof of his building, leaving him with fractures in his back, three broken ribs and a machete wound on his head.
The journalist, Ayub Meahzi, believes he was targeted for reporting on alleged local government ties to a criminal group.
The...
Read more: Bangladesh media in fear after PM’s ‘people’s enemy’ attack
Write comment (95 Comments)Bangladesh police on Wednesday charged a reporter from a leading newspaper with producing “false news”, stoking fears about media freedom, after an article about high food prices went viral.
Shamsuzzaman Shams was picked up from his home in the industrial town of Savar just outside Dhaka at about 4am by plainclothes police, according to his...
Read more: Bangladesh journalist charged over story about rising food prices
Write comment (91 Comments)Read more: Rohingya refugees bet lives on boat crossings regardless of increasing death toll
Write comment (100 Comments)The cracks on the walls started to appear two days earlier. But despite the warning signs, Moushumi Begum still came to work on 24 April 2013. Moments later, she was buried under heavy rubble. “It all happened so quickly. I vividly remember every detail about that day, even though it was 10 years ago,” says Begum, who spent three hours trapped und...
An estimated 12,000 Rohingya have been left without shelter after a fire tore through part of a cramped refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying health centres, learning facilities and mosques.
The fire broke out at Camp 11 of Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, which is home to more than 1 million Rohingya refugees, including 700,000 who...
Read more: Huge fire at Rohingya refugee camp leaves thousands without shelter
Write comment (92 Comments)Dozens of hungry and weak Rohingya Muslims were found on a beach in Indonesia’s northernmost province on Sunday after weeks at sea, officials said.
The group of 58 men arrived on Indrapatra beach at Ladong, a fishing village in Aceh Besar district, said local police chief Rolly Yuiza Away. Villagers who saw the group of Rohingya on a rickety wooden...
Read more: ‘Very weak’ Rohingya refugees land on Indonesia beach after weeks at sea
Write comment (92 Comments)A fire tore through a refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims in southern Bangladesh on Sunday, leaving thousands homeless, officials said. The blaze erupted at Camp 11 in Cox’s Bazar, a south-eastern border district where more than 1 million Rohingya refugees live. Most of them fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017...
Read more: Huge fire at Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh leaves thousands homeless – video
Write comment (93 Comments)“That period was a time I was in hell” is how one woman describes her two years working for VK Garments (VKG) in Thailand. Hla Hla Tey, who at 54 has struggled to find work since losing her job and now lives in a monastery, is among 130 former workers who are bringing a landmark case against Tesco in the UK. The supermarket giant stands accused of...
Read more: The Guardian view on Tesco and supply chains: landmark case shines a light | Editorial
Write comment (91 Comments)Read more: [Bangladesh] - Abuses 'still rife': 10 years on from Bangladesh's Rana Plaza catastrophe
Write comment (97 Comments)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.
It was not...
Read more: Bangladesh: at least six people killed in fire after explosion at oxygen plant
Write comment (99 Comments)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...
Read more: Activists appeal for rescue of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea in leaking boat
Write comment (97 Comments)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...
Read more: Bangladesh shuts down main opposition newspaper
Write comment (93 Comments)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...
Read more: Two Bangladeshi opposition leaders arrested in government crackdown
Write comment (91 Comments)Aloka Gonju didn’t take much notice of the discoloured patch of skin on her left hand until her fingers began to stiffen and hurt. It became a struggle to pick leaves at the tea plantation where she works in Bangladesh.
“I had no idea what was happening to me,” says the 47-year-old, whose wages support her husband, four children and three gra...
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.
“The repercussions of these cuts will be immediate and long lasting, as r...
Read more: UN warns of ‘unconscionable’ cuts to Rohingya food rations as donations fall
Write comment (94 Comments)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.
Why is...