Girl battling trauma, burn complications

Farzana Akter, who had survived a deadly blaze that killed eight of her family members in 2014, has been admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with various ailments.

Quoting doctors, her relatives said she was suffering from kidney related problems and her body and hands which were burnt in the fire got swollen.

Zaheda Begum, wife of one of her maternal uncles, waits on her at DMCH.

Zaheda said they had admitted her to a local hospital a few days earlier but shifted her to DMCH as her condition deteriorated.

Following the fire that engulfed their tin-roof single-room house at Kalshi, Farzana, now 18, was staying with the family of her maternal aunt in Mohammadpur Bihari camp.

Nine people including eight members of her family were burnt dead as locals allegedly set several houses on fire at Kalshi Bihari camp in Mirpur after a series of clashes with Bihari people over firecracker explosions on June 14, 2014.

Another Bihari man died after being hit by bullets during the attack.

Farzana's father Yasin Ali was killed in a road accident in the capital's Mirpur in September that year. Along with other Bihari people, he had been demanding justice for what he said “an arson attack”, killing almost all her family members.

Farzana herself had suffered 17 percent burns to her body, from which she later developed various complications. However, defying all this, she enrolled in class VII at Dhaka Presidency High School in Mohammadpur early this year to continue her study.

“I want to be a teacher,” she told The Daily Star yesterday.

Farzana now lives with the family of Aslam Khan, the husband of her mother's sister.