Hill Voice, 25 April 2020, Satkhira: The sudden outbreak and lockdown of coronavirus (COVID-19) across the country has multiplied the misery of the coastal indigenous Munda community. They are having a hard time in the food crisis due to unemployment.

The indigenous Munda community live in the Sundarbans coastal region in the south of Bangladesh. Around 460 families of Munda community live in eight unions of Shyamnagar upazila under Satkhira district. Their population is a little over three thousand.

Almost all of them are poor and their education rate is negligible. Most of the indigenous Mundas of the region make a living on day laborers, brickfield laborers and by collecting fish and crabs.

In a word, their life run on the hand to mouth earning. If they don’t work one day or if they don’t get a job one day, they fall in hardship condition.

Amid their such suffering, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the lockdown have multiplied their misery. In this situation they are living a very difficult day.

Krishnapada Munda, Director of the non-governmental organization ‘Sundarban Adivasi Munda Sangstha’ (SAMS), which works with the Mundas, said, around 215 families of Mundas have so far received government and non-government relief assistance. Since the Mundas are poorer than the poorest, they need to have more room for cooperation.

A Munda villager, who worked on the Crab project, said he used to get a monthly salary before Corona. Work is now closed due to Corona. If it continues like this, he would have to starve.

Jagadish Chandra Munda of the area said, he could not get out of the house due to the epidemic Corona disaster. He adds, “If we can’t work what do we eat? I got a relief bag. There was food for three days. It is already over. How will I spend the days ahead?”, he adds question.

Source: ipnewsbd