Disney pulls out: Amid a series of garment factory disasters in Bangladesh, the Walt Disney Company announced it would stop production of merchandise in the country.
Disney sent out a letter to vendors and others that it would gradually move out of Bangladesh and other “highest-risk countries,” reported CNN. The letter was circulated in March.
Pakistan, Belarus, Venezuela, and Ecuador were also named as high-risk countries to do business, said Disney in the letter. The company will transition out of those countries and Bangladesh by next April.
“After much thought and discussion we felt this was the most responsible way to manage the challenges associated with our supply chain,” Bob Chapek, president of Disney Consumer Products, told the network.
Disney reportedly made the move before a garment factory collapsed last week, killing 400 people.
The company made the decision following the Tazreen Fashions Factory fire that killed 112 people as well as another fire that killed 262 workers at a garment factory in Pakistan.
This week, Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hassan Suhrawardy, the commander of the area’s army garrison supervising the rescue work, dismissed reports that up to 1,000 people were missing and accusations from some relatives that authorities are hiding the bodies to keep the death toll low.
“Don’t listen to such rumors,” he told reporters.
A mass Muslim funeral was held Wednesday for 34 victims whose bodies were too battered or decomposed to be identified. Cemetery workers have dug several long rows of graves where scores more unidentified bodies are expected to be buried in the coming days.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
