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BD exhumes mass grave from 2024 uprising

AFP December 08, 2025 Less than a minute read

People watch Muhammad Yunus, leader of Bangladeshi interim government, as he appears on a screen while reading the July Declaration, during celebrations marking the one-year anniversary of student-led protests that led to the ousting of Bangladeshi then-Prime-Minister Sheikh Hasina, at Manik Mia Avenue, outside the parliament building, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, August 5, 2025.PHOTO: REUTERS

DHAKA:

Bangladeshi police began exhuming on Sunday a mass grave believed to contain around 114 unidentified victims of a mass uprising that toppled autocratic former prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year.

The UN-supported effort is being advised by Argentine forensic anthropologist Luis Fondebrider, who has led recovery and identification missions at mass graves worldwide for decades.

The bodies were buried at the Rayerbazar Graveyard in Dhaka by the volunteer group Anjuman Mufidul Islam, which said it handled 80 unclaimed bodies in July and another 34 in August 2024 — all people reported to have been killed during weeks of deadly protests.

The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity.

Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah said investigators believed the mass grave held roughly 114 bodies, but the exact number would only be known once exhumations were complete.