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Bangladesh police clash with protesting refugees

15 June 2014 03:43 (UTC +04:00)

The demonstration was staged in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on Saturday after unidentified people stormed a slum inhabited by the Pakistani refugees earlier in the day and set fire to the houses there.

The deadly attack came after violent clashes broke out between local residents and the Pakistani refugees over the use of firecrackers during a festival a day earlier.

Imtiaj Ahmed, a Bangladeshi police official, said at least 10 people had lost their lives in the violence.

According to the official, nine people, including seven members of a single family, were burned to death in the arson attack, while another one died in the clashes.

Reports say five children were among the victims and many others also sustained injuries in the violence.

The death toll is expected to rise as refugees continue searching for the missing, according to the reports.

“We are trying to recover the bodies,” said Ahmed, adding that tensions may have been longstanding between the local residents and the refugees.

More than 250,000 Urdu-speaking people live in 70 camps run by the Red Cross in Bangladesh. They have been residing in Bangladesh since the South Asian country’s bloody war of independence from Pakistan in 1971.