Bangladesh
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh was born in 1971 after the “war of liberation” from Pakistan. The partition of the British Empire in 1947 led to the division of Bengal into two distinct regions, separated by a physical, political and religious border. West Bengal, largely Hindu, was under the rule of the Indian government, while East Bengal (later renamed East Pakistan) had a Muslim majority and was annexed by Pakistan, also a recently formed state. Although about 1,700 kilometers apart, the political union between Pakistan and East Pakistan has never been easy.
Over the years, ethnic and linguistic discrimination has progressively spread into civil society and Pakistani military structures, where Bangladeshis were often underrepresented. The situation exploded after the 1970 general elections, when the pro-Bengal party “Awami League” won the majority of seats in the General Assembly. Subsequently, the Pakistani government declared the election result null, leading East Pakistan, supported by India, to declare independence on 26 March 1971. The causes of the conflict between Islamabad and Dhaka which then ended with the rapid surrender of Pakistan. The “Bangladesh Liberation War” lasted, in fact, only nine months.
The new country, which took the name of Bangladesh, adopted its constitution on November 4, 1972, establishing a secular, multi-party parliamentary democracy.
Soon after its creation, Bangladesh would face political instability along with major socioeconomic challenges. Weakened by endemic poverty and recurring famine, the country fell into the hands of the military with the first coup in 1975 and for the following 15 years.
Bangladesh, similarly to neighboring Myanmar, is prone to natural disasters. Located at the confluence of two major rivers, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, the country is subject to seasonal floods, landslides and cyclones which make it extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Considering the very high population density, these effects reveal a considerable number of people involved.
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh covers an area of 147,000 square kilometers and has a population of over 160 million people, making it, in fact, one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Over the past two decades, Bangladesh has benefited from improved political stability, steady economic growth and strengthening international relations, particularly with neighboring India. Some of the social indicators, such as life expectancy, literacy rate, per capita food production and infrastructure, have also improved significantly.
However, with the latest Rohingya crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017, when hundreds of thousands of civilians were forced to flee their homes and cross the border into Bangladesh, the humanitarian situation in the country worsened. is exacerbated, especially in the Cox’s Bazar area, known to be among the largest refugee settlements in the world.
The extent of the population flow that crossed the border has put a strain on the existing humanitarian services in the Cox’s Bazar district, making a planned intervention by the international community urgent and a priority, precisely in order to contain the humanitarian crisis.
For further information see:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/bangladesh/overview
https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/myanmar_refugees
http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx/_Images/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Bangladesh