International

Conjoined Bangladeshi twins who were separated last week are in a stable condition, the team of Hungarian and Bangladeshi doctors who carried out the marathon operation said Saturday. Three-year-old Rabeya and Rukaya who were joined at the head suffered from a rare embryological disorder affecting an estimated one in every five to six million births. The girls were recovering after the 30-hour operation to separate their skulls and brains at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka. A surgical team of 35 Hungarians and more than 100 Bangladeshi doctors took part in the delicate procedure which they dubbed ‘Operation Freedom’. The girls were in stable condition after the final separation, the last phase in a lengthy series of surgeries since last year, said Gergely Pataki, founder of Action for Defenceless People Foundation (ADPF) which led the huge team of doctors. ‘But keeping in mind that such rare complicated surgical procedures has its risks, complications might still occur,’ he told reporters at a press conference in CMH. The girls have undergone two neurosurgical operations and 44 plastic surgeries so far. Before the surgery doctors had said there was only a 50 percent chance of the twins surviving. According to ADPF, only a handful of operations to separate twins joined at the head have been successful. The Hungarian charity was set up in 2002 by neurosurgeon Andras Csokay and plastic surgeon Pataki to provide free surgery to poor people in Hungary and abroad. In the first phase of surgery in Bangladesh last year, the shared blood vessels of the twins' brains were separated in a 14-hour operation. ADPF neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons supported by anaesthesiologists, radiologists and paediatricians also used innovative 3D animation software to map the two brains. The twins' overwhelmed mother Taslima Khatun said she cried tears of joy when one her daughters spoke to her on Saturday. ‘One of my babies this morning told me, 'Mother take me on your lap.' This gave me huge peace of mind. I'm so very happy,’ she said. She was however concerned about whether the twins would make a complete recovery. Anaesthesiologist Marcell Csapody said they were ‘hopeful and optimistic’ the twins would make a full recovery but had to be realistic as the youngsters were not yet completely out of danger. ‘We have to be optimistic and (simultaneously) realistic,’ he said. ADPF has performed around 500 reconstructive surgery operations in Asia and Africa

Five-year-old Mohamed Ahnaf lies in a makeshift bed in the balcony of a major hospital in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, fighting for his life as dengue fever ravages his little body.  But his mother Shimul Akhter knows he is one of the lucky ones as Bangladesh grapples with its worst-ever outbreak of the viral fever — 23 have died and many cannot get access to medical help at all.  Since January, almost 30,000 people have been hospitalised with the disease nationwide, and in the past week some 2,000 patients a day have been admitted to hospitals.  “The situation is like an epidemic. But no-one is admitting it,” one expert, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP adding the real number of those with dengue was likely to be several times higher than official figures, which are based on limited data.  Panic is setting in. Such is the terror of those with symptoms that medical staff have been attacked as they try to stretch the meagre resources around and in some cases armed guards have been called in for protection.  Facilities are struggling to cope with the influx – mattresses line every inch of spare floor extending beyond wards into corridors and balconies.  Dengue, which causes flu-like symptoms, can be deadly if it develops into a haemorrhagic fever. There is no vaccine or any specific medicine to treat dengue, according to the World Health Organisation. Authorities are worried the situation is set to worsen. With the upcoming Eid al-Adha holidays, the fever could spread to remote villages as tens of millions of people head back to rural areas to celebrate the festival. At Suhrawardi Medical College Hospital in central Dhaka where Ahnaf has been admitted, all the wards are full of dengue patients. New arrivals are given whatever open space is available in the hospital. “There is no bed available inside the wards. Too many patients are getting admitted and too many patients have been sent back,” Akhter said. “But Allah was kind, we got a bed in the balcony after waiting for hours,” the 30-year-old added.  At the hospital’s diagnosis centre, hundreds of people — many clutching sick babies in their laps — queued up to take dengue tests. “Doctors decide which dengue patient should be admitted to hospital and who would take treatment at home. But people’s attitude towards dengue has changed. They are panicked (sic) and everyone wants to get admitted in the hospital,” explained Suhrawardi’s director Uttam Kumar Barua, adding that exhausted medical teams had been working round the clock for weeks. Outside, people crowd pharmacies to buy mosquito repellents, with some stores running out of supplies in recent days. Other residents say the ointments and sprays are now being sold at exorbitant prices. The head of Bangladesh’s National Health Rights Society, renowned doctor Rashid-e-Mahbub, said the “national disaster” was in part caused by the lack of anti-mosquito measures before the annual monsoon season. Leading virologist Saifullah Munshi added that a construction boom in Dhaka, unplanned urbanisation and climate change — which has caused a spike in humidity and intermittent rains — had created ideal breeding grounds for the Aedes mosquito, which spreads the disease. The country’s health department said some 23 people have died so far, although it has cautioned the official fatality figures are low due to a slow validation process. But mass circulation Bengali daily Prothom Alo said the death toll was nearly 100. Meanwhile, Akhter fears for her family’s health. The hospital doesn’t have a dedicated paediatric intensive care unit to handle severe cases such as Mohamed. Her other son, who is just three years old, is also starting to feel feverish. She says: “We are very much scared. My elder boy is still not out of danger. Now he (younger son) felt warm this morning. I hope he has not caught dengue.”

‘Boss’, a Brahman bull born in the USA but raised in Bangladesh, has been sold for a record price as the country prepares to sacrifice over 10mn animals to celebrate the festival of Eid al-Adha next week, officials said yesterday. Tens of millions of Bangladeshis travel back to their homes across the country to celebrate the annual three-day religious holiday, which is known as the festival of sacrifice. People slaughter an animal — a goat, sheep, cow, or camel — during the festivities. The meat is distributed in equal parts to the poor, relatives, and consumed by the family themselves. Millions of hides are donated to poor people and orphanages.  Raising animals for Eid al-Adha is a major job creator, and there is fierce competition among farmers throughout the South Asian nation to rear the best-looking and heaviest cattle.  “Boss”, imported from the United States and reared at a farm on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, broke all records when it became the country’s most expensive sacrificial animal. “It was sold for 3.7mn taka (US$43,750),” owner Mohamed Imran Hossain said of the 1,400-kg behemoth.  He told AFP the buyer was a garment factory owner.  Another Brahman bull — named “Messi” after the Argentine football star and raised at the same farm — sold for 2.8mn taka, the second-highest price this year. Titanic, an Australian Holstein Friesian, fetched 1.7mn taka. Animal rights groups criticise Bangladesh’s practice of slaughtering animals at homes and front yards. But authorities see the price war for Eid animals as a boon for the impoverished economy, particularly for farmers who have suffered heavy losses amid plunging rice prices in local markets.  “This year we have estimated that a record 10.7-mn animal cows, goats, sheep and camels would be sacrificed during the Eid,” the head of the government’s livestock department, Hitesh Chandra Basak, told AFP.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit India in October in her first visit to the neighbouring country after coming to power for a third consecutive term, the foreign office has announced. Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen, who announced the planned trip while talking to reporters on Sunday, said the agenda of her visit will be discussed when Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar comes to Bangladesh on August 20-21, reports bdnews24. Bangladesh and India currently enjoy the best of their relations. More than 100 agreements have been signed in the last 10 years, 68 of them in the last three years alone. The decades-old land boundary as well as maritime issues has been solved. But the equitable share of the Teesta river water still remains unresolved, the minister said. During his last meeting with Jaishankar, Momen said they discussed the Teesta issue but did not provide any other detail.  “He (Jaishankar) told me it’s out of the Central government’s control.”  Asked whether it is possible to complete the deal during the visit, the foreign minister replied: “I can’t say,” the website reported. He, however, said, “We have warm relations and both governments are committed to resolving the issues.” Momen also said that they are discussing the sharing of all common 54 rivers between the countries.

Bangladeshi twins who were joined at the head were recovering yesterday after Hungarian surgeons performed a marathon 30-hour operation to separate their skulls and brains. The three-year-old twins, named Rabeya and Rukaya, suffered from a rare embryological disorder affecting an estimated one in every five to six million births. They were “stable after the final separation,” said Andras Csokay, a neurosurgeon with the Action for Defenceless People Foundation (ADPF) that organised the 35-strong Hungarian surgical team. After the separation at Dhaka’s Combined Military Hospital, Csokay’s team began to cover the wound area with soft tissues generated by a tissue expansion process carried out in Hungary. Rafiqul Islam, the father of the twins, was relieved and overjoyed. “The doctors have separated my babies. I have seen them with my own eyes. They are now fine,” said Islam, a teacher from the rural northwestern district of Pabna. He praised the doctors and added: “I hope my daughters will fully recover and grow up healthy and have a normal life.” Before the surgery doctors had said there was only a 50% chance of the twins surviving. According to ADPF, only a handful of operations to separate twins joined at the head have been successful. The Hungarian charity was set up in 2002 by Csokay and plastic surgeon Gergely Pataki to provide free surgery to poor people in Hungary and abroad. Islam and his wife approached the group for help in 2017. In the first surgery phase in Bangladesh last year, the shared blood vessels of the twins’ brains were separated in a 14-hour operation. Then in a second six-month-long phase beginning in January, Rabeya and Rukaya moved to Budapest where doctors inserted an implant system to expand the scalp and soft tissue in their heads. More than 40 plastic surgery interventions took place to fill the expanders, change the bandages and to perform laser and regenerative wound treatment. ADPF neurosurgeons and plastic surgeons supported by anaesthesiologists, radiologists and paediatricians also used innovative 3D animation software to map the two brains. “This was one of the biggest most challenging malformations that I have ever seen,” Pataki said last month. The twins and Hungarian medics returned to Bangladesh in late July ahead of the final surgery. ADPF has performed around 500 reconstructive surgery operations in Asia and Africa, including for Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is in the grip of the country’s worst-ever dengue fever outbreak, officials said yesterday, with hospitals overflowing and social media flooded with pleas for blood donors. Eight people have died and there have been 13,637 cases of the disease so far this year, with nearly 1,100 people – most of them children – diagnosed in the last 24 hours, according to official figures. “This number is the highest since we started keeping record on dengue patients nearly two decades ago,” senior health ministry official Ayesha Akter said. Local media reported that the number of victims could be much higher and the Amader Shomoy newspaper said at least 30 people had died of dengue this year. The capital Dhaka is the worst-hit, with the city launching a fumigation drive to kill the Aedes mosquito, which is capable of spreading devastating diseases like dengue, Zika and chikungunya. Dengue, which causes flu-like symptoms, can be deadly if it develops into a haemorrhagic fever. There is no vaccine or any specific medicine to treat dengue, according to the World Health Organisation. An AFP correspondent visited major hospitals in Dhaka and saw patients lying on floors and in corridors as they waited for treatment. The country’s largest hospital – Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) – has treated some 1,858 dengue patients this month, according to director general A K M Nasir Uddin. “We have opened a special corner for dengue patients,” he said. Doctors have been working overtime to cope with the large volume of patients. “Our facilities are overstretched and overwhelmed. We are struggling to cope,” a medical officer at Dhaka’s Mitford Hospital said. There have been reports of blood banks struggling to meet the needs of seriously ill patients, with appeals for blood launched on social media sites such as Facebook. One mother said she was worried about her sick daughter, aged four. “Doctors have done all they could do. All I am doing now is calling Allah for help,” Nasima Khatun said.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refuse to return to Myanmar unless they are recognised as an ethnic group in their home country, leaders told visiting Myanmar officials yesterday as fresh repatriation talks started. A campaign by Myanmar’s military in response to insurgent attacks in 2017 drove 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh’s southeastern border district of Cox’s Bazar, where they live in squalid camps, fearing further persecution if they return. UN investigators have said Myanmar’s operation included mass killings, gang rapes and arson and was executed with “genocidal intent”. Myanmar denies the charge. This is the second time Myanmar officials have visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar in an effort to convince Rohingya refugees to kick-start the repatriation process. In October, Rohingya rejected an offer to go back to their homeland when a Myanmar delegation held talks with leaders of the group. The Myanmar delegation, led by permanent foreign secretary Myint Thu, held talks with 35 Rohingya leaders in Cox’s Bazar on Saturday and yesterday amid tightened security in the camps. Rohingya leaders said they wanted Myanmar to recognise them as an ethnic group with the right to Myanmar citizenship before they return. “We told them we won’t return unless we are recognised as Rohingya in Myanmar,” Dil Mohamed, one of the Rohingya leaders who joined the talks, told Reuters by telephone. He also said they will not return to Myanmar unless demands for justice, international protection and the ability to go back to their original villages and lands are met. “We want citizenship, we want all our rights. We don’t trust them. We will return only if international protection is in place,” he said. “We will return to our own land... (we) don’t want to end up living in camps.” In November, a formal move to start the repatriation process stalled as no Rohingya agreed to return to Myanmar. The UN refugee agency and aid groups are also doubtful about the plan as they fear for the safety of Rohingya in Myanmar. “We are ready to begin the repatriation anytime. It is up to Myanmar to create a conducive environment to allow the Rohingya to return to their homeland,” said Abul Kalam, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner. With the repatriation plan largely stalled, Bangladesh has been considering relocating Rohingya refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal, but some have expressed concern this could lead to a new crisis given the island is vulnerable to cyclones. Myanmar has made “minimal” preparations for the return of Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh, an Australian think-tank said.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refuse to return to Myanmar unless they are recognised as an ethnic group in their home country, leaders told visiting Myanmar officials on Sunday as fresh repatriation talks started. A campaign by Myanmar's military in 2017 drove 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh's southeastern border district of Cox's Bazar, where they live in squalid camps, fearing further persecution if they return. UN investigators have said Myanmar's operation included mass killings, gang rapes and arson and was executed with "genocidal intent".  This is the second time Myanmar officials have visited the camps in Cox's Bazar in an effort to convince Rohingya refugees to kick-start the repatriation process. In October, Rohingya rejected an offer to go back to their homeland when a Myanmar delegation held talks with leaders of the group. The Myanmar delegation, led by permanent foreign secretary Myint Thu, held talks with 35 Rohingya leaders in Cox’s Bazar on Saturday and Sunday amid tightened security in the camps. Rohingya leaders said they wanted Myanmar to recognise them as an ethnic group with the right to Myanmar citizenship before they return. "We told them we won't return unless we are recognised as Rohingya in Myanmar," Dil Mohammed, one of the Rohingya leaders who joined the talks, told Reuters by telephone. He also said they will not return to Myanmar unless demands for justice, international protection and the ability to go back to their original villages and lands are met. "We want citizenship, we want all our rights. We don't trust them. We will return only if international protection is in place," he said. "We will return to our own land ... (we) don't want to end up living in camps." In November, a formal move to start the repatriation process stalled as no Rohingya agreed to return to Myanmar. The UN refugee agency and aid groups are also doubtful about the plan as they fear for the safety of Rohingya in Myanmar. "We are ready to begin the repatriation anytime. It is up to Myanmar to create a conducive environment to allow the Rohingya to return to their homeland," said Abul Kalam, Bangladesh's refugee relief and repatriation commissioner. With the repatriation plan largely stalled, Bangladesh has been considering relocating Rohingya refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal, but some have expressed concern this could lead to a new crisis given the island is vulnerable to cyclones. Myanmar has made "minimal" preparations for the return of Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh, an Australian think-tank said.

Eight people have been killed in vigilante lynchings in Bangladesh sparked by rumours on social media of children being kidnapped and sacrificed as offerings for the construction of a mega-bridge, police said Wednesday. The victims -- which include two women -- were targeted by angry mobs over the rumours, spread mostly on Facebook, that said human heads were required for the massive $3 billion project, police chief Javed Patwary said. "We have analysed every single case of these eight killings. Those who were killed by lynching mobs -- no-one was a child kidnapper," Patwary told reporters in Dhaka. More than 30 other people have been attacked in connection with the rumours. Patwary said police stations across the country had been ordered to crack down on rumours, and at least 25 YouTube channels, 60 Facebook pages and 10 websites have been shut down. AFP has identified several posts still on Facebook that share the rumour, however. Mob lynchings are common in Bangladesh, but the latest incidents are particularly brutal. Local media said they started after reports circulated of a young man allegedly found carrying the severed head of a child in the northern district of Netrokona. Among the latest victims was a single mother-of-two, Taslima Begum, who was beaten to death in front of a Dhaka school on Saturday by a mob which suspected her of being a child kidnapper, a police official told AFP. A deaf man was also beaten to death outside the capital that day while trying to visit his daughter. Police said eight people have been arrested over Begum's murder, and at least five others detained for their role in spreading the rumour on social media. The lynchings could be "a sign of people's distrust in the existing law and order system", Dhaka University sociology professor Monirul Islam told AFP. The bridge -- which is set to be Bangladesh's biggest -- is being built on the Padma, a major tributary of the Ganges. Rumours of human sacrifices being required for a bridge in Bangladesh have surfaced before, with several people attacked in 2010 over another structure, according to local media.

Severe flooding has killed at least 61 people, displaced nearly 800,000 and inundated thousands of homes across a third of Bangladesh, government officials said on Tuesday, after two weeks of heavy monsoon rains. Nearly 3 million people are struggling with flooding, the worst in two years, according to the disaster management and relief ministry. As water levels began to recede, authorities expressed concern about outbreaks of infectious diseases in the country of more than 160 million. ‘With the receding flood waters across the country, there is a possibility of outbreaks of water-borne diseases,’ Shah Kamal, secretary of the disaster management and relief ministry, told Reuters by phone from Sirajganj, a flood-hit district 130 km (81 miles) from the capital Dhaka. ‘That’s why we are setting up water treatment plants in the flood-affected areas on a priority basis,’ he said. At least 22 patients with symptoms of diarrhoea and some other ailments were admitted to hospital in the northern Bogra district, said surgeon Gowsul Azam. Raqibul Alam, spokesman of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society in Bangladesh, said about 700 volunteers, including 100 staff, were engaged in relief operations in the northern and northwestern parts of Bangladesh. The Red Cross is providing food, drinking water and other aid, including 4,500 taka ($54) per family to help flood victims, Alam said. Kamal said the government had earmarked 45.80 million taka ($543,684) to help people rebuild houses. Two officials from the agriculture department said early estimates suggested farmers had lost agricultural produce worth more than $40 million. ‘The losses will be substantially higher when we get a full list from different flood-affected areas,’ said one official. About 9 km of embankments, 172 km of roads and nearly 250 bridges and culverts had been damaged by the floods, according to a preliminary assessment by the disaster management and relief ministry. In neighbouring Nepal, torrential rain caused landslides that swept away five houses on Tuesday, killing eight people in Gulmi district in the west, police said. Four others were missing and two were injured, police official Dipak Basnet said. Authorities said the latest deaths take to 100 the number of people killed in rains in the past two weeks in the Himalayan nation. Thirty others are missing across Nepal.

Rain-swollen rivers in Bangladesh broke through at least four embankments, submerging dozens of villages and doubling the number of people fleeing their homes overnight to 400,000 in one of the worst floods in recent years, officials said yesterday. Heavy rains and overflowing rivers have swamped 23 districts in northern and northwestern Bangladesh, officials said. At least 30 people have been killed since the floods began last week. “The government has opened more than 1,000 temporary shelters but due to deep waters and lack of communications, many people aren’t able to reach them,” Raihana Islam, an official in the flood-afflicted district of Bogra, said. Islam said scores of people had instead camped on embankments, railway lines and highways, where traffic has come to a standstill. Aside from concern over crops, authorities are also worried that rising flood waters could take a toll on livestock. South Asia receives monsoon rains between June and October that often lead to floods later in the season, but the intensity of the deluge in Bangladesh is uncommon. “The severity of the flood of this year is worse compared to recent years,” Ariful Islam, an executive engineer of Bangladesh Water Development Board, said. The floods worsened after three embankments on the Brahmaputra river, which flows down from the Himalayas, through northeastern India and into Bangladesh, gave way late on Thursday, said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, an official in the federal agriculture ministry. “The onrush of water submerged a vast area along with several dozen villages,” he told Reuters. In the neighbouring Indian state of Assam, floods on the Brahmaputra and its tributaries since last week displaced some 5.8 million people, but the situation has improved with waters receding, a state minister said. “While some people have started going back to their homes, about 70% continue to remain in makeshift relief camps,” Assam Water Resources Minister  Keshab Mahanta said. Water levels were also coming down in the northern Indian state of Bihar, where floods have killed at least 78 people. “We are now taking measures to prevent outbreak of any disease,” Manish Kumar, the emergency officer at Bihar’s worst flood-hit  district of Sitamarhi, said. Two people died in Sri Lanka and five were missing due to heavy rain which had forced hundreds to flee their homes across the island nation, the state-run Disaster Management Centre said. The central districts of Nuwara Eliya and Ratnapura were the worst affected.

At least nine people were killed when a speeding train hit a minibus carrying a wedding party at a railway level crossing in western Bangladesh on Monday evening, police said.  Officer Mosharraf Hossain said eight of the passengers, including the newly married bride and groom, died immediately when the Dhaka-bound Padma Express train ploughed into the minibus at the Panchacroshi level crossing in Pabna district.  The scene is located nearly 130 kilometres west of the capital Dhaka. One passenger died at a local hospital, Hossain added. The train hit the minibus as soon as it entered the unmanned level crossing and dragged it for 200 metres along the track, railway official Golam Mustafa said.  Local residents blocked the track after the accident in protest, prompting the authorities to suspend railway communications on the route for hours, railway official Golam Mustafa said. The minibus was taking the wedding party back to Sirajganj district from Ullapara in Pabna district after the marriage ceremony, Mustafa added.  Deaths at level crossings are frequent in Bangladesh as most of the more than 2,500 railroad crossings in the South Asian country are unmanned.

Former Bangladesh military dictator Hussain Muhamed Ershad died yesterday aged 89, after weeks in a Dhaka hospital, officials said. General Ershad ruled Bangladesh for nearly a decade before being ousted from power in a pro-democracy upsurge in 1990 and was jailed for years on corruption charges. He passed away due to complications from old age, Kazi Firoz Rashid, a longtime colleague and lawmaker from his Jatiya Party, said. Armed forces spokesman Abdullah bin Zaid confirmed the death. Ershad, who was also a prolific poet, was the head of the country’s armed forces in 1982 when he took power in a bloodless coup after removing an elected government from power. His rule was marked by a controversial decision to make Islam the state religion of the officially secular Muslim-majority nation. In comments made to local reporters from jail in 1996, he said that his “greatest failure... was running the country softly with a heart of a poet”. Despite the slew of cases against him, Ershad emerged as one of Bangladesh’s major power brokers in the 1990s after his Jatiya Party became the country’s third biggest political outfit. The former general became a key ally of Hasina and remained hugely popular in his home district in the country’s north from where he was elected member of parliament six times in a row.

Lightning, rain-triggered flooding and landslides have killed at least 16 people in Bangladesh as parts of the South Asian country were deluged by heavy monsoon rain, officials said on Saturday.  Thirteen were killed in lightning strikes while the rest died in flooding and landslides, prompting the authorities to evacuate hundreds of residents to emergency shelters in flood-hit areas of the country. Asif Anam, a local government official in the western Paban district, said four people, including three members of a family, immediately died after being hit by lighting as they processed raw jute at a marshland during the inclement weather.  The electrical storm left a fisherman and three farmers dead in north-eastern Mymensingh district as they were out in the open during the disturbance, said police officer Firoj Talukder. Officer Munshi Asaduzzaman said three day-labourers died in a lightning strike as they were unloading a banana-laden truck in western Chuadanga district. In May 2015, at least 40 people were killed during a thunderstorm that swept parts of Bangladesh.  Meteorologists say people's lack of knowledge about keeping safe in electrical storms cause the high number of fatalities due to lightning. Two people were killed in the south-eastern Rangamati district after their homes were buried under chunks of mud that fell from an adjacent hill due to heavy rain in the last couple of days, disaster management official Balinur Begum told dpa by phone.  The body of one man was retrieved from a river after two people went missing in a flash flood in the Bandarban hills, while two others were killed during thunderbolts in north-eastern Sunamganj district, she said.  Three others were rescued in the port city of Chattogram after they became trapped inside a home that was also buried because of the rain-triggered mudslide. Flooding of vast areas in the south-eastern hill districts of Khagrachhari, Rangamati and Bandarban have forced many residents to rush to emergency shelters.  Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that her government had taken every preparation to tackle the flooding. More than 1,300 people were evacuated in Rangamati district alone, Begum said, adding that rescuers have been working hard to bring the flood-affected people to 131 state-run shelters from the remote hills in Bandarban. Parts of Bangladesh have been experiencing heavy rain because of the active monsoon since Monday, when two more people were killed in landslides in Rangamati. Bangladesh's national weather service has forecast heavy rainfall in the next 24 hours, with an end in sight for Sunday morning. It warned of more landslides in hilly areas and urged residents to move to safety. Deaths from mudslides during the monsoon are common in Bangladesh. More than 150 people were killed in a series of rain-triggered landslides in the southern hilly districts of Chittagong, Rangamati and Bandarban in June 2017.  Meanwhile, several thousand residents in northern parts of the country were marooned as major rivers flowed at dangerously high levels, due to heavy rainfall upstream in the Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya and West Bengal. Bangladesh's Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre warned that the water level may continue to rise further.

Monsoon-triggered landslides in Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh have killed one person and left more than 4,500 homeless, aid officials said Sunday. About 35 centimetres of rain fell in 72 hours before the landslides started Saturday in camps around Cox's Bazar that house more than 900,000 of the Muslim minority who fled Myanmar, the UN said. Twenty-six landslides were reported in makeshift camps built on hills near the border with Myanmar. Trees there have been torn up to build huts and for firewood, leaving the terrain unstable. UN refugee agency official Areez Rahman said about 30 shanty camps have been affected by the storms. One woman in her 50s died after being hit by a wall that collapsed, he told AFP. Nur Mohammad, a 40-year-old Rohingya in the main Kutupalong camp, said 12 relatives had fled their tarpaulin-clad huts on the hills to take shelter with him. "My home is already overcrowded. I'm worried how I will feed all these people," he said. Officials said some 5,000 Rohingya on a strip of no man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar had also been badly hit by the storms. "Children are suffering from diarrhoea and we don't have enough drinking water," camp leader Dil Mohammad told AFP by phone. He said most of the camp was knee deep in water as Myanmar authorities had put a dam on a nearby river. Bangladesh's refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said on Sunday emergency preparations were being made. Monsoon storms killed 170 people in the refugee camp in 2017.  Last year the UN refugee agency moved 30,000 Rohingya out of areas considered at high risk of landslides and floods. Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a military crackdown in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar's Rakhine state in August 2017, joining about 200,000 already living in camps across the border. Bangladesh wants to relocate up to 100,000 of the refugees to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal but this is opposed by the refugees and international rights groups.

Fire tore through a textile factory in central Bangladesh killing at least six people, officials said yesterday. The fire brigade took 12 hours to control the blaze at the huge factory in Sreepur, near the capital Dhaka, which cast fresh attention on safety in Bangladeshi factories after a series of disasters. The fire spread quickly late Tuesday as water supplies to the fire hydrant ran out, local fire chief Akhter uz Zaman said. The fire brigade said six  bodies had been recovered. With about half of the complex destroyed, emergency services were searching for other victims, Zaman added. Authorities have launched an inquiry into the cause of  the blaze. Bangladesh, the world’s second largest clothes maker after China, has faced international criticism over lax factory safety standards. The pressure intensified after the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster when a complex of factories collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people. Western retailers have pushed factory owners to boost safety standards and created two monitoring associations to help the effort. These organisations have either stopped their work or are about to leave, and rights groups say the government is not yet ready to enforce international standards. The debate was raised again in March when a fire in a Dhaka office building killed 26 people.

Relatives, friends and well-wishers laid flowers at a sombre remembrance service in Dhaka yesterday in honour of the victims of a deadly terrorist attack on a restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital three years ago. Militants carried out the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan diplomatic area on July 1, 2016, killing more than 20 people, including foreign nationals, and holding others hostage for hours. Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian and three Bangladeshi nationals were killed by the militants before army commandos stormed the eatery the following morning. The commandos killed five militants and a chef, who was mistaken for an associate of the attackers. Two policemen were also killed during the 12-hour siege. Representatives from the Bangladesh police, political parties, cultural organisations and diplomatic missions in Dhaka paid respect to the victims by placing floral wreaths at the site of the cafe. “We will have to work together to thwart the militants in Bangladesh,” senior police officer Maruf Hasan, one of the survivors of the cafe attack, told reporters after placing the flowers. Hasan was one of the first police officers to encounter the militants and sustained injuries after the assailants threw a hand grenade toward the policemen. Bangladesh launched a nationwide anti-militant crackdown after the cafe attack and has killed more than 100 suspected radical Islamists in raids by security forces since then. Monirul Islam, head of the anti-terrorism unit of Bangladesh police, said he believed that all the accused in the cafe attack case were either arrested by the police or killed in anti-militant raids. An anti-terrorism court in Dhaka began a trial against eight home-grown hardliners in December 2008 for helping carry out the attacks. “We hope the terrorists will be given exemplary punishment by the year end,” said Monirul Islam, head of the anti-terrorism unit of Bangladesh police. The Holey Artisan Bakery was reopened at a shopping mall, a few blocks away from its original location, six months after attack was carried out.

A top Bangladesh paediatric doctor said Sunday he had been transferred to a remote rural clinic after criticising the country's cricket captain on social media. Rezaul Karim, a child cancer specialist, was posted to the southeastern district of Rangamati weeks after criticising skipper Mashrafe Mortaza on Facebook. "I have been transferred to Rangamati Medical College which doesn't have any cancer treatment facilities. This seems to me an unnatural process," he told AFP. Mohsin Uddin, a deputy secretary of the country's health ministry who signed the transfer order, said it was "only an administrative decision", and rejected any suggestion it was a punishment. A social media row started after Mashrafe, the country's most popular sportsman and a member of parliament for the ruling party, visited a state-run hospital in his rural constituency and became infuriated when he found several doctors absent. A video of Mashrafe criticising one senior doctor by telephone went viral on social media. Karim said he was one of six doctors served notice by the country's health ministry after writing a Facebook post criticising Mashrafe for "taking pleasure in bowling Bangladeshi doctors". Two months later he was ordered to remote Rangamati, where a low-intensity tribal insurgency has simmered for decades. Karim's sudden transfer from a cancer facility in Chittagong -- where he was treating over 100 young patients -- has also grabbed local media headlines. Bengali daily Manabjamin said the transfer was a consequence of Karim's "disrespectful" Facebook remark against Mashrafe, who enjoys enormous popularity in cricket-mad Bangladesh. Mashrafe is currently in England taking part in the World Cup. Mashrafe hails from the southwestern Narail district, where his charity Narail Express -- also the fast bowler's nickname -- has donated ambulances to hospitals and rice seed to farmers. Turning to politics after retirement is not unusual for South Asian cricketers, but Mashrafe is still playing, captains Bangladesh in the one-day format of the game, and intends to lead the team even after the World Cup.

A Bangladeshi known as the “Tree Man” because of bark-like growths on his body said yesterday he wanted his hands amputated to relieve him of unbearable pain. Abul Bajandar has had 25 operations since 2016 to remove growths from his hands and feet caused by a rare syndrome. Doctors had believed they had beaten the disease but Bajandar fled a Dhaka clinic in May last year following a relapse. The 28-year-old father of one was readmitted to hospital in January because the condition worsened, with some growths  several inches long. “I cannot bear the pain anymore. I can’t sleep at night. I asked the doctors to cut off my hands so I can at least get some relief,” he said. His mother Amina Bibi supported the plea. “At least he will be free of pain. It’s a hellish condition,” she said. Bajander suffers from epidermodysplasia verruciformis, a rare genetic condition also known as “tree man syndrome”. Bajandar said he wanted to go abroad for better treatment, but he does not have the money to cover the expenses. Samanta Lal Sen, the chief plastic surgeon at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said a board of seven doctors will discuss Bajandar’s condition today. “He gave his personal opinion. But we will do whatever is the best solution for him,”  said Sen. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised free treatment for Bajandar after his plight made national and international headlines. Bajander lived in the hospital’s private wing for nearly two years during his first round of treatment. Fewer than half a dozen people around the world are believed to have the syndrome. The hospital also treated a young Bangladeshi girl suffering from the condition  in 2017. Doctors declared her surgery a success, but her father later said the growths had returned in even greater numbers and the family halted the treatment and returned to their village.

The first Indian grey wolf to be seen in Bangladesh in eight decades has been beaten to death by farmers after preying on their livestock, wildlife experts said yesterday. The grey wolf was last seen in Bangladesh in 1949, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Locals in a town near the Sundarbans - the world’s biggest mangrove forest that straddles India and Bangladesh - captured and killed the wolf because it had attacked their livestock. “With the images we confirmed that the animal is an Indian grey wolf,” Y V Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India said. There are still about 3,000 of the animals in India, some in captivity, but they disappeared from their habitat in north and northwest Bangladesh in the 1940s, he said. Anwarul Islam, a zoologist at Dhaka University, collected DNA samples from the animal as his team looks for signs of more Indian grey wolves in the region. “It’s sad it was beaten to death. We need to conduct further investigations to find whether it travelled in a pack,” said Islam. The wolf was killed in early June but was only identified when photos of its corpse were sent to experts. A host of animals - including the striped hyena, swamp deer and black buck - have disappeared from Bangladesh over in recent decades.