Tag: Tazreen Fashion

Eating up children

by rahnuma ahmed

Local residents help firefighters battle the deadly factory blaze at Smart Exports, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, January 26, 2013 ?AP
Local residents help firefighters battle the deadly factory blaze at Smart Exports, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, January 26, 2013 ?AP

Josna, isn’t Josna feeling cold?
I didn’t know what to say as I sat beside Josna’s mother on the curb, outside the Emergency department of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). It was slightly chilly, the last cold wave of January was making its appearance felt.
The breeze seemed to blow away her words, but only as far as outside appearances went. They clung to the inner recesses of my mind.
I shivered, but not because of the cold. Josna, 16 years old, a garment factory worker at Smart Exports in Mohammadpur Beribadh area, was lying cold, on a metal trolley inside the morgue. Continue reading “Eating up children”

Fighting Hopelessness Amid Ashes

by James Estrin New York Lens Blog

“Pardon me, my dear, I am going to die,” Jelekha Begum’s husband said in a last phone call from the burning factory he was trapped in on Saturday. The fire, at Tazreen Fashions factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killed more than 100 workers. ??Taslima Akhter

Taslima Akhter was overcome with emotion when she arrived at the Tazreen Fashions garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Sunday evening, four hours after?fire tore through the building. She watched firefighters battle the blaze ? which killed at least 112 people?? as throngs of workers and family members waited to see if their loved ones?had survived. Continue reading “Fighting Hopelessness Amid Ashes”

NISCHINTAPUR DEATHS: Killers at large

by rahnuma ahmed

Grieving for lost ones. Tazreen fashion, Nischintapur, Ashulia, November 25, 2012 ? Taslima Akhter

EVERYTHING SEEMED to come to a standstill as the death toll in the factory fire at Nischintapur kept rising. Death isn’t a question of numbers, even a single death which could have been prevented, is one too many. But still, the numbers were staggering.
Sunday’s newspaper headlines had said, nine. But as the day unfolded, the death toll shot up unbelievably; the numbers were conflicting — 110, no 124, later, down to 111. They still conflict, for, family members say some loved ones are still missing.
Numbing numbers. I stare at them blankly. I look at my partner Shahidul and wonder, what, if he’d been one of the 111 or so dead? I reach out and touch him. No, its nothing, I say, when he looks up. Continue reading “NISCHINTAPUR DEATHS: Killers at large”