Yesterday half of our group was moved back to Dhaka. The hartal's have become much more frequent as the local courts are convicting the 'ringleaders' from the 1971 Liberation War. In the last two weeks two have had guilty rulings with punishment of death and one that was already on death row died of old age in jail. This has really raised the political fervour here such that a hartal has been called every day starting last Wednesday, except Fridays (mosque day) and Tuesday (national holiday). Therefore half of our group (myself included) flew back to Dhaka and on Friday the other half will travel. It isn't because flights are cancelled, it is because it is very difficult to get to or from the airport and the strikers often target vehicles and their occupants.
Dhaka has seen some protests in the form of marches, burning of buses and detonating of improvised bombs. But we have not seen anything like this and we continue to just stay in our hotel for safety (metal detector and bag check to get in to the hotel and security is definitely packing heat). Before leaving for Bangladesh, I notified the Canadian government of my travel and they have been very good about emailing me updates and notifying me of when I should stay hunkered down and when it is safe to move around.
So with that, I am safe where I am and even if a hartal is called next week on the day we fly out, we have all agreed to head to the airport very early to avoid an issue and just wait it out at the airport till our flight is ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment