Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan

The two-day International e-conference on “Connecting the Rohingya Diaspora: Highlighting the Global Displacement” ended at 10:00pm on August 26 with the 2nd Dhaka Declaration, 2020.

To mark the 3rd anniversary of the latest round of massive Rohingya exodus from Myanmar to Bangladesh, ActionAid Bangladesh in collaboration with the Centre for Genocide Studies (CGS), University of Dhaka and the Centre for Peace and Justice (CPJ), Brac University organised a two-day long international e-conference titled “Connecting the Rohingya Diaspora: Highlighting the Global Displacement.”

More than 32,000 substitute and temporary workers of the 25 state-run jute mills that were closed down recently have been denied compensation packages though many of them had worked at the mills for decades.

Thousands of students who got admission and scholarship at different universities abroad are in deep trouble due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the whole country is celebrating Eid-ul-Azha, Khalishpur industrial area of ​​Khulna is in dismal state.

Hundreds of biological science and technology graduates of the country cannot apply their specialised knowledge in practical settings due to the lack of well-equipped laboratories and funding.

The continuous spread of Covid-19 and the consequent shutdown have made jobs rare and life harder for many daily wage earners of the capital.

Twenty-five Bangladeshi fishermen from Kurigram, stuck in an Assam jail for two months without trial, have little hope of returning home soon while another already has died in custody.

Hundreds of jute mill workers yesterday took to the streets in Dhaka, Khulna and Chattogram, protesting the government decision to shut all state-run jute mills and lay off 25,000 workers.

The government has put the last nail on the coffin of the country’s state-run jute industry by closing all the 22 jute mills and laying off 24,886 workers.

On April 14, a wooden vessel crammed with Rohingyas reached the Teknaf jetty. Those Rohingyas, all of whom were residents of different refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, tried to go to Malaysia in search of livelihood.

Rozina Akhter, an 11-year-old child with autism, has stayed confined to her home at Mirpur for the last three months and her mother is still struggling to make her understand why school is closed.

Thousands of critical cancer, heart, kidney and liver patients have their treatments on hold as medical tests they require have been off for lack of radioactive isotope for the last two months.

Due to a lack of coordination and support from the health ministry, a good number of laboratories and experts based in universities and government research institutions remain unutilised in the country’s Covid-19 response.

The US-Bangla Airlines will operate eight special flights on Chennai-Dhaka and Kolkata-Dhaka routes from April 20 to bring back over 1,000 stranded Bangladeshis who went there for treatment.

As the coronavirus gains a foothold in the country, the increasing vulnerability of millions of orphaned and destitute children remains largely unaddressed.

A large number of Bangladeshi patients and their attendants are stuck in India as the neighbouring country has been under a lockdown since March 25.

Around a million Rohingya in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, along with aid workers, are likely to be among the worst sufferers if coronavirus spreads in the region, feared experts.

Although the diagnosis of novel coronavirus is so far only Dhaka-based, the authorities prefer not to expand the testing facilities to hospitals outside the capital right now due to a lack of trained manpower and unavailability of the necessary technology.

For hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi state-run jute mill workers, this year began with an assurance that is all-too-familiar to them.