Bangladesh (MNN) — Bangladesh will soon begin extraditing former prime minister Sheikh Hasina from neighboring India to face charges related to mass killings.
More than a thousand people were killed and hundreds injured during a crackdown on student-led protests against Hasina’s government in July and August. Religious minorities quickly became a target. More about that here.
“When the government collapsed, the police pulled back from their areas, and the streets were like the Wild West,” FMI’s Patrick Anthony says.
Things have since calmed in the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, but violence continues in remote communities. Anthony says, “Hindus and Christians are feeling very vulnerable right now. People see these minorities as cooperatives to the former government.”
(Photo courtesy of FMI)
Although the population of Muslim-majority Bangladesh is only eight percent Hindu and less than one percent Christian, these small percentages don’t offer protection. Attackers recently targeted a Hindu family living near one of FMI’s national leaders.
“A group of 10 attacked their house and raped the wife and mother, which ended up putting her in the hospital,” Anthony says. “There’s a great pressure to ‘hunker down’ and do what you can to protect your family. At the same time, there is tremendous (Gospel) opportunity.”
FMI supports national leaders and church planters in Bangladesh. Learn how you can come alongside their work here. Ask the Lord to supernaturally protect believers and other targeted minorities.
“They’re scared. They’re feeling very vulnerable. Pastor Rajeeb [has] been robbed a couple of times, and he said it would not take much for people to do it again,” Anthony says.
“We’re praying that the Lord’s protection when there is no police would be a testimony to the reality of the God that Christians are following: Jesus Christ.”
Pray for the banking system to resume normal operations and for the police to increase patrols in vulnerable areas. Pray the interim government holds elections on schedule and can establish a permanent government.
“The caretaker government is supposed to hold elections within 90 days to put a permanent government in place. [Our partner] has heard talk that this caretaker government may want to hold power for a number of years,” Anthony says.
“He said if they try to do that, he anticipates the situation in Bangladesh getting worse.”
Header image depicts student protestors in Bangladesh. Students launched the “Bangla Blockade” following a one-point demand for scrapping all illogical and discriminatory quotas in public service through enactment of a law and keeping a minimum quota for marginalized citizens in line with the constitution. (Wikimedia Commons)
