Fresh clashes between opponents of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, security forces and supporters of the ruling party left at least 94 dead in Bangladesh on Sunday, on the eve of a call by students to march on the capital.
Sunday’s death toll, compiled by AFP based on data from police, officials and doctors in hospitals, is the highest in a single day since anti-government protests began a month ago. In this Muslim country of 170 million people, students are protesting, against a backdrop of high unemployment among graduates, the favors granted to those close to the government to become civil servants.
Neighbouring India on Sunday “strongly advised” its nationals against travelling to Bangladesh.
PHOTO MUNIR UZ ZAMAN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Men wave national flags as they demonstrate to demand justice for victims arrested and killed in recent nationwide violence in Dhaka on Sunday.
Among the dead were at least 14 police officers, according to police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan. Rival camps clashed with sticks and knives, and security forces fired live ammunition. A police station in Enayetpour was stormed and 11 police officers were killed, police said.
All of Dhaka was transformed into “a battlefield”, and a crowd of several thousand demonstrators set fire to cars and motorbikes near a hospital, according to another police source.
Sunday’s bloody toll brings to at least 300 the number of people killed since the protests began in July. Local media, citing authorities, reported a death toll of more than 90 on Sunday alone.
In Dhaka, gunshots and repeated explosions were heard after dark as protesters defied the curfew, despite a near-total cutoff of mobile internet.
At least 12 people were killed in the capital, several of them by gunshot wounds, while 18 people lost their lives in the northern district of Sirajganj, according to police and hospitals.
“The shocking violence in Bangladesh must stop,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights urged on Sunday evening, worried about Monday when “the youth movement of the ruling party mobilizes against the protesters.”
PHOTO ABDUL GONI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Buses were set on fire outside the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University after a clash between students and government supporters during a protest in Dhaka on August 4.
Earlier in the day, thousands of Bangladeshis gathered in a square in Dhaka to demand Mr.me Hasina, after more than a month of protest initially directed against reserved job 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 the student collective “Students Against Discrimination” which had urged civil disobedience the day before. For his part, the secretary general of the ruling party, the Awami League, 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 time has come for the final demonstration,” said Asif Mahmud, one of the leaders, calling for a march on the capital on Monday.
The army “on the side of the people”
These clashes are among the deadliest since Mr.me Hasina 15 years ago. To restore order, her government cut off internet access, closed schools and universities, imposed a curfew and deployed the army.
PHOTO ATHIT PERAWONGMETHA, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina
Former military officers have since come out in support of the protesters.
In a highly symbolic stand against the prime minister, a former army chief, General Ikbal Karim Bhuiyan, called for the withdrawal of troops from the streets. In a joint statement with other former senior officers, he stressed that people were “no longer afraid to sacrifice their lives.”
In several cases, soldiers and police did not intervene against the protesters, unlike last month.
“Those responsible for pushing the people of this country into such dire poverty must be brought to justice,” Bhuiyan also said.
On Saturday, the current army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, had affirmed that the army would “always stand with the people”, according to a statement.
“Live freely”
The country has many unemployed graduates, and students are demanding the abolition of a system of positive discrimination that reserves a quota of public jobs for the families of independence veterans.
Partially abolished in 2018, this system was restored in June by the courts, setting the fuse alight, 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 Mr.me Hasina.
“It’s not just about job quotas anymore,” Sakhawat, a young protester she met in Dhaka, told AFP, where she was painting graffiti on a wall calling Mme Hasina as a “killer”.
“We want future generations to be able to live freely,” she said.
Forty-seven companies in the textile sector said they were “in solidarity” with the protest movement on Sunday.