Bangladesh Leader Resigns, Flees Country Amid Protests

Students clash with riot police during a protest against a quota system for government jobs, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 18, 2024. Rajib Dhar/AP Photo

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed resigned and fled the country on Aug. 5, according to the country’s top military officer. The move came after weeks of protests against a quota system for government jobs descended into violence.

Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, the chief of Bangladesh’s Army Staff and the country’s top military official, announced Hasina’s resignation in a televised news conference.

Hasina, 76, was the longest-serving female head of government and was elected for a fourth consecutive term in a January vote that her main opponents boycotted.

Thousands of opposition members were jailed in the lead-up to the polls, and the U.S. government denounced the result as not credible, although the Bangladesh government defended it.

Hasina’s apparent resignation and departure from the country follows weeks of deadly clashes between Bangladeshi military forces and demonstrators who have protested her government’s quota system reserving a percentage of government jobs for relatives of war veterans.

Bangladeshi forces met the demonstrations with internet shutdowns and curfews and fired on demonstrators with crowd control munitions.

The unrest continued to grow and, after new rounds of deadly clashes over the weekend, Bangladeshi military forces appeared to relent and step aside. Tens of thousands of demonstrators flooded the capital city of Dhaka, and thousands poured into the grounds of the prime minister’s residence.

Zaman, in his televised address, said “all political parties” within the country had discussed the leadership upheaval and had decided to form an interim government.

The Bangladeshi military leader said he ordered Bangladeshi troops not to fire on demonstrators. He vowed that the military would investigate the weeks of deadly incidents that added to the unrest in the country.

“Keep faith in the military, we will investigate all the killings and punish the responsible,” Zaman said.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during a press conference in Dhaka in this file photo. STR/AFP/Getty Images

Hasina also offered to talk with protest organizers on Aug. 3 and open an investigation into the killings of protesters, but protest organizers rejected her offers.

“One cannot ask a killer government for justice or sit for talks with them. The time to ask forgiveness has passed,” protest organizer Nahid Islam said in a message rejecting Hasina’s offers over the weekend.

The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka issued an advisory following the leadership shakeup, urging U.S. citizens to seek shelter, citing the “unpredictable and volatile nature of the current situation.”

“Further violence connected to the government transition is possible. Gatherings and additional protests are unpredictable and may materialize quickly,” the U.S. Embassy added.

The U.S. Embassy said Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport has paused operations and protesters have blocked the main airport road. Still, the embassy advised Americans to strongly consider returning to the United States when it’s safe to do so.

The U.S. Embassy said its Dhaka office space is only open for limited operations and all routine consular services are canceled until Aug. 7, as U.S. mission personnel shelter in place.

State Department officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for further comment on the situation in Bangladesh.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this article.