Akbar Hossain, a seasonal fruit seller, tries to earn money in the Mirpur area of Dhaka. Street vendors face huge losses as panic-stricken city dwellers stay at home. (Photo: Stephan Uttom/UCA News)
Akbar Hossain looked anxious and frustrated as he sat with a basketful of guava at Mirpur-10 roundabout in northern Dhaka.
“Every day I sell fruits worth about 2,000 taka (US$24). It’s 12pm now and I have not sold a single fruit yet. I have never experienced such a disappointing situation,” Akbar, 18, told UCA News.
For nearly a week he has been forced to sell guava at an extremely low price due a massive slump in demand.
“Usually, guava sells at 70 taka per kilogram, but I am forced to sell at 20-30 taka. If this continues, I’ll have to leave the city and go back to my village soon,” he said.
Akbar, a Muslim, has been a seasonal fruit seller for the past three years since he left his village in Bhola district in southern Bangladesh to find fortune in the bustling capital.
….as we enter the last months of 2021, we are asking readers like you to help us keep UCA News free.
For the last 40 years, UCA News has remained the most trusted and independent Catholic news and information service from Asia. Every week, we publish nearly 100 news reports, feature stories, commentaries, podcasts and video broadcasts that are exclusive and in-depth, and developed from a view of the world and the Church through informed Catholic eyes.
Our journalistic standards are as high as any in the quality press; our focus is particularly on a fast-growing part of the world - Asia - where, in some countries the Church is growing faster than pastoral resources can respond to – South Korea, Vietnam and India to name just three.
And UCA News has the advantage of having in its ranks local reporters who cover 23 countries in south, southeast, and east Asia. We report the stories of local people and their experiences in a way that Western news outlets simply don’t have the resources to reach. And we report on the emerging life of new Churches in old lands where being a Catholic can at times be very dangerous.
With dwindling support from funding partners in Europe and the USA, we need to call on the support of those who benefit from our work.
-1631444873.jpg)
