“Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people [!] were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.”
(Payne, Massacre, p. 48.)
Pic description: Mass grave containing the bodies of Bengali intellectuals, killed by Razakars, in a clay pit near Dhaka during the war for Bangladeshi independence.
[Image: © Christian Simonpietri/Sygma/Corbis
Collection: Sygma
Standard RM
Photographer: Christian Simonpietri
Date Photographed: December 18, 1971
Location Information: near Dhaka, Bangladesh]
