Slums dotted with railway sides in Dhaka

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and one of the most densely populated cities in the world, is dotted with slums along the city’s railways, where people work and live on or alongside the railway randomly, as a result, many accidents and deaths occur from time to time on the railway lines adjacent to these neighborhoods. Human rights activist and nutrition expert, Salma Akhtar, sees that living on the sides of the railways is a risky place due to poor basic infrastructures such as contaminated drinking water and lack of sanitation facilities. While, several residents, or what is known as slums, indicated that there are many deaths on an ongoing basis because there is no official railway law or a specific mechanism by the authorities that prevent people from crossing the train line. As per the latest census 2020, the population of Dhaka is around 21 million which has an area of 306 square kilometres.