After river erosion took their homestead in Bhuapur, Tangail, a husband’s long illness has taken away the last thing Chan Mia and Rezia Begum had to live on. Without money for regular food or treatment, the helpless couple eat one meal and go without the next.
A visit on Sunday (15 November) found a small, tumbledown hut on government land beside the road in the Jigatola area of Gobindasi union in the upazila. Whenever it rains, water drips in through the broken roof. In these conditions the childless couple, Chan Mia and Rezia Begum, get through their days somehow.
According to local people, Chan Mia once had a homestead in the Rampur Char area of the upazila. After the Jamuna’s erosion took his house, he came to Jigatola with his wife looking for shelter. With local people’s help, their small shack was built beside the road, and it also got an electricity connection. Chan Mia used to beg and Rezia Begum worked in other people’s homes to keep the household going. But in 2023 Chan Mia was suddenly struck by severe breathing trouble and became bedridden.
Before that, one of his legs was broken in a road accident and was treated with help from local people. Now, besides his breathing trouble, he lies in bed with severe pain all over his body. His illness leaves him barely able to speak; he only recites the dhikr in silence.
With no children and no regular income, they live on the little help their neighbours give. Even when they get one meal, every day passes in uncertainty about what they will eat next. They cannot even afford everyday cooking oil and soap.
“We get by somehow on what people give us,” Rezia Begum said, in tears. “If we eat one meal, we can’t eat the next. We can’t afford to do the shopping properly or buy oil and soap. I can’t get my husband treated for lack of money.”
Local residents said the childless couple have lived in extreme hardship for a long time, and having no one to look after them has made their suffering worse. They called on the administration and the well-off to come forward and arrange a government house and treatment for the family.
Bhuapur upazila social services officer Nazmul Hasan said the family would be given every kind of help it needs, including a government family card, and that every effort would also be made, through the upazila administration, to arrange a house for them.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report