Violent protests in Bangladesh: at least 55 dead

Increasingly violent clashes between opponents of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, security forces and supporters of the ruling party have at least 55 people died in Bangladesh on Sunday, according to a new report from police and hospitals.

Among the dead were at least 14 police officers, according to police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan.

The rival camps clashed with sticks and knives, and the police fired live ammunition.

Sunday's bloody toll brings the death toll to at minus 261 the number of people killed since the protests began in July.

Bangladeshi protesters, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, wave the national flag at the anti-terrorism sculpture Raju in Dhaka, on August 4, 2024 © AFP – Munir UZ ZAMAN

Police said protesters stormed a police station in the northeastern town of Enayetpur country.

“The terrorists attacked the police station and killed 11 policemen,” said Bijoy Basak, deputy inspector general.

Faced with these clashes in several cities, particularly in Dhaka, the capital of twenty million inhabitants, a former army chief called for the withdrawal of troops from the streets.

Protesters demand the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on August 4, 2024 in Dhaka © AFP – Munir UZ ZAMAN

Earlier in the day, thousands of Bangladeshis gathered in a square in Dhaka to demand the resignation of Ms. Hasina, after more than a month of protests initially aimed at employment quotas in the civil service.

Some waved a Bangladeshi flag on an armoured vehicle as soldiers looked on, according to videos posted on social media and verified by AFP.

They were responding to the call of a student coalition, Students Against Discrimination, which had urged disobedience the day before civil.

“There were clashes between students and men from the ruling party,” police inspector Al Helal told AFP.

Deaths were reported in Dhaka and the northern districts of Bogra, Pabna and Rangpur, as well as in Magura in the west, Comilla in the east, and Barisal and Feni in the south.

All of Dhaka turned into “a battlefield” and a crowd of several thousand protesters set fire to cars and motorbikes near a hospital, another police source said,

Protesters demand the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, August 4, 2024 in Dhaka © AFP – Munir UZ ZAMAN

One of the student leaders, Asif Mahmud, had warned his fellow citizens on Sunday that they must be “ready to fight”. “Prepare your bamboo sticks and liberate Bangladesh,” he wrote on Facebook.

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For his part, the general secretary of the ruling Awami League party, Obaidul Quader, had called on Bangladeshis to gather on Sunday in “all the neighborhoods of Dhaka” and “in all the districts” of the country.

– The army, “on the side of the people” –

The clashes are among the deadliest since Hasina came to power 15 years ago. Her government has cut off internet access, imposed a curfew and deployed the army to restore order.

Smoke rises from Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University after clashes between security forces and protesters demanding the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on August 4, 2024 in Dhaka © AFP – Munir UZ ZAMAN

Former military officers have since lent their support to the protest movement.

“We are deeply concerned (…) and saddened by all the killings, torture, disappearances and mass arrests that have plagued Bangladesh over the past three weeks,” former Bangladesh army chief General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan told reporters on Sunday.

“We call on the current government to immediately withdraw the armed forces from the streets,” added Mr. Bhuiyan, in a joint statement with other former senior officers, stressing that people were “no longer afraid of sacrificing their life”.

“Those who are responsible for pushing the inhabitants of this country into such an extreme state of misery must be brought to justice,” he said. .

On Saturday, the current head of the army, General Waker-uz-Zaman, assured him that the army had “always been on the side of the people and always will be”, according to a press release.

– “Live freely” –

In this Muslim country of 170 million inhabitants with many unemployed graduates, the students demanded the abolition of a system of positive discrimination, accused of favoring the hiring of those close to power in the administration.

Partially abolished in 2018, this system was restored in June by the courts, igniting the powder, before a new reversal at the end of July by the Supreme Court.

The social crisis turned into a political crisis from July 16, when the repression caused its first deaths, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of Ms. Hasina, 76, in power since 2009.

“It's no longer just about job quotas,” Sakhawat, a young protester met in Dhaka, told AFP, where she was creating a graffiti on a wall calling Ms. Hasina a “killer”.

Protesters demand the resignation of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, August 4, 2024 in Dhaka © AFP – Munir UZ ZAMAN

“We want future generations to be able to live freely,” she explained.

Forty-seven companies in the textile sector have say “in solidarity”, on Sunday, with the protest movement.

“We cannot remain silent and watch innocent people lose their lives and demands go unheard” , they wrote in a joint press release.

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