Bangladesh: At Least 300 Dead

On Sunday, August 4, violence erupted again in Bangladesh. In just one day, bloody clashes between police, protesters, and government supporters have claimed the lives of 94 people, and the preliminary death toll has risen to 300. According to very rough police estimates, about 6,000 people were injured in the riots.

Anti-government protests in this Asian country of 170 million people erupted about a month ago after students – amid high graduate unemployment – took to the streets to denounce “favors given to those close to the government to become civil servants.”

In a briefing, a police spokesman in the Bangladeshi capital said that “the entire city of Dhaka has turned into a battlefield.” On Sunday, a crowd of several thousand protesters set fire to some government buildings. Many cars and motorcycles were burned. Numerous gunshots have been heard throughout the city day and night, despite authorities declaring a nighttime curfew and ordering a nearly total ban on cell phone and Internet connections.

After a new mass gathering of protesters was recorded in Dhaka on Monday, August 5, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk issued an appeal to the Bangladesh government, calling on law enforcement forces to stop attacking peaceful protesters.

“I am deeply concerned that there could be another loss of life at the mass rally planned for Monday in Dhaka, as well as the presence of the ruling party’s youth wing mobilizing against the demonstrators,” Turk wrote on X social network (former Twitter).