Like another Gaza' Yunus on picking up the pieces in Bangladesh

When Muhammad Yunus returned to Bangladesh in August, he was greeted with bleak scenes. The streets were still slick with blood, and the bodies of more than 1,000 protesters and children were piled up in morgues, riddled with bullets fired by police.

- Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Sheikh Hasina had just been toppled by a student-led revolution after 15 years of authoritarian rule. At 84, Yunus—the economist who won a Nobel peace prize for pioneering microfinance for the poor—had long given up his political ambitions. He had suffered years of vilification and persecution by Hasina—who viewed him a political threat—and had been living in the US for decades.

But when the student protesters asked him to lead an interim government to restore democracy to Bangladesh, he agreed.

"The damage she had done was monumental," Yunus told the Guardian. "It was a completely devastated country, like another Gaza, except it wasn't buildings that had been destroyed but whole institutions, policies, people, international relationships."

Hasina's reign was dominated by allegations of tyranny, violence and corruption. It culminated in a bloody few weeks over July and August when more than 1,400 people were killed in protests against her repressive rule, a police crackdown that could amount to a "crime against humanity," according to the UN. She has denied all use of excessive force.

Yunus's return was heralded as the dawn of a new era for Bangladesh. In the six months since he took charge, senior police officers have been prosecuted for extrajudicial killings, secret detention centers where her critics were allegedly tortured have been emptied, human rights commissions have been set up and Hasina is facing hundreds of charges, which she denies. Yunus pledges that, some time between December and March 2026, Bangladesh will hold its first free and fair elections in decades, after which he will hand over power.

But there is a feeling the country now stands at a precipice. While Yunus is still widely respected, questions have been raised over his governance capabilities and the pace of promised reform.