Mostafa Yousuf

At least three workers sustained burn injuries in an explosion while working at a shipbreaking yard in Sitakunda upazila of Chattogram yesterday.

A second whale carcass washed ashore at Himchhari beach of Cox’s Bazar yesterday.

Two ministries which regulate the shipbreaking industry decided earlier this year to make an Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) mandatory for shipbreakers, in phases, to stop toxic vessels sailing into Bangladesh.

Rohingya parents are enduring an agonising wait as they hope to be reunited with their children who were separated in the massive fire that raged through four camps on Monday in Balukhali of Cox’s Bazar’s Ukhiya upazila.

Five kilometres away from the fire that erupted at Camp-8(E), Meer Kashem was watching the smoke billow on the horizon from his home in Balukhali’s West Para in Cox’s Bazar on Monday.

An organised syndicate of sand and earth lifters has been wreaking havoc on the Halda river at the upstream in Fatikchhari upazila while the local administration turned a blind eye to the menace.

Three forest officials in Chattogram’s Rangunia staged a fake gunfight allegedly to give back a boat, seized earlier with logs, to its owner in exchange for a bribe.

Md Karim was dismantling his home yesterday morning at Patenga’s Laldiarchar area in the port city. He built the house 30 years ago with his savings, but in the face of Chattogram Port Authority’s (CPA) eviction drive, Karim had no alternative but to pull it down.

Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) has decided to evict around 14,000 people from Laldiarchar of Potenga in the port city in line with a High Court order that asked it to free the area of illegal occupiers within a few weeks.

Sixty-year-old Mohammed Hossen, a Rohingya from Kutupalong camp, who never thought that he would ever move to Bhasan Char about which he used to hear various negative things.

Growing various crops was the only source of livelihood for the people of Gorkhana, Chodurkhil, and Haldarchar -- three villages in Manikchhari upazila of Khagrachhari where the Halda river originates.

Three The Daily Star correspondents visited six centres of the Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) polls, housed in two schools in the port city.

The family of the youth who died in gunfight between supporters of two councillor candidates alleged that the miscreants used police’s firearms to shoot the victim.

One fine morning in 2015, fisherman Mohon Jolodas woke up to the roar of dump trucks close to his home, adjacent to Kohelia river in Matarbari union of Moheshkhali.

Loggers have been wiping out hundreds of acres of forest in Hathazari upazila of Chattogram, within a three-kilometre radius of the Forest Department office. The felled logs are then smuggled through the department’s checkpoints, largely without any obstruction.

After 2020 saw several worker’s death in multiple shipbreaking yards in Sitakunda upazila, a Ministry of Industry letter has put the blame on yard owners’ apathy in ensuring a safe workplace for their employees.

A local lawmaker has put forward a proposal to change the status of nearly 600 acres of reserve forest and wildlife sanctuary in Cox’s Bazar into khas land for leasing it out to the people living there.

In 2018, aged just 43, Mazidul Haque developed severe breathing problems, consulted a doctor and was diagnosed with asbestosis, a potentially fatal respiratory disease which scars the lungs. After more than a decade working in the shipbreaking yards of Chattogram, he lost his job, and the means to support his family.

At the end of 2019, Belal Uddin (18), came to Sitakunda from Kurigram in search of work. With a three-member family to feed back home, he was desperate to make ends meet. Soon, he started life as a novice shipbreaking worker at a yard at a daily wage of Tk 220 for an eight-hour day.

No one is too young to make a difference. This statement gets passed around a lot, but seldom do we come across someone who live their life as a genuine example of it.