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Bangladesh Leader Steps Down and Leaves Country Amid Unrest

August 5, 2024 TruthUSA

Thousands of opposition members were jailed ahead of the January reelection of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, and protests recently turned deadly.

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed resigned and fled the country on Monday, Aug. 5, according to the country’s top military officer.

Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, the Chief of Bangladesh’s Army Staff and the country’s top military official, announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised press conference on Monday.

Hasina, 76, was the longest-serving female head of government and was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that her main opponents boycotted.

Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, and the U.S. government denounced the result as not credible, though the Bangladesh government defended it.

Hasina’s apparent resignation and departure from the country follows weeks of deadly clashes between Bangladeshi military forces and demonstrators who have protested her government’s quota system reserving a percentage of government jobs for relatives of war veterans.

Bangladeshi forces met the demonstrations with internet shutdowns and curfews and fired on demonstrators with crowd control munitions.

The unrest continued to grow and, after new rounds of deadly clashes over the weekend, Bangladeshi military forces appeared to relent and step aside. Tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded the capital city of Dhaka, and thousands poured into the grounds of the prime minister’s residence.

Zaman, in his televised address, said “all political parties” within the country had discussed the leadership upheaval and had decided to form an interim government.

The Bangladeshi military leader said he ordered Bangladeshi troops not to fire on demonstrators. He vowed that the military would investigate the weeks of deadly incidents that added to the unrest in the country.

“Keep faith in the military, we will investigate all the killings and punish the responsible,” Zaman said.

Hasina also offered to talk with protest organizers on Saturday and launch investigations into the killings of protesters, but protest organizers rejected her offers.

The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka issued an advisory following the leadership shakeup urging U.S. citizens to seek shelter, citing the “unpredictable and volatile nature of the current situation.”

“Further violence connected to the government transition is possible. Gatherings and additional protests are unpredictable and may materialize quickly,” the U.S. Embassy added.

The U.S. Embassy said Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has paused operations and protesters have blocked the main airport road. Still, the embassy advised Americans to strongly consider returning to the United States when it’s safe to do so.

The U.S. Embassy said its Dhaka office space is only open for limited operations and all routine consular services are canceled until Aug. 7, as U.S. mission personnel shelter in place.

The Epoch Times reached out to the U.S. State Department for further comment on the events unfolding in Bangladesh but did not receive a response by press time on Monday morning.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this article.

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