Bangladesh garment workers demand justice on anniversary of factory disaster

Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers demanded justice on the anniversary Sunday of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex that claimed over 1,100 lives.

Survivors of the disaster, many of whom lost limbs when the nine-storey building came crashing down three years ago, laid flowers at the site and wept as they remembered the dead.

Relatives of those killed, including some whose bodies were never found, recited verses of the Koran and prayed after gathering from early morning at Savar just outside Dhaka.

Bangladesh charges Rana Plaza factory owner with murder over 2013 tragedy

“Three years have passed and still we don’t see any justice. No one has been held to account for one of history’s worst man-made disasters,” union leader Abul Hossain said as he led the protest.

Police have arrested and charged the owner of the building with murder, along with 40 others – including factory officials and government inspectors who certified the flimsy complex as safe.

But no one has yet been convicted over the disaster, which ocurred after thousands of textile workers were forced to enter the building to start their shifts despite cracks appearing in its pillars one day before.

Workers also staged protests in Dhaka on Sunday and outside a state graveyard where hundreds of unidentified victims have been buried, to demand swift trials for those charged.

“Rana must be hanged!” workers shouted, referring to arrested building owner Sohel Rana who was politically influential in Bangladesh.