DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, <\/p>\n
Bangladesh\u2019s first female prime minister dies after a prolonged illness in Dhaka, her party says.<\/p>\n
Published On 30 Dec 202530 Dec 2025<\/p>\n
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Bangladesh\u2019s first female prime minister, Khaleda \u2060Zia, has died at a hospital in the country\u2019s capital, Dhaka, \u200bafter a \u200dprolonged illness, according to her party and local media.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Tuesday, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) said Khaleda died at 6am local time (00:00 GMT). She was 80 years old.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOur beloved national leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am today,\u201d the BNP said in the statement posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe pray for the forgiveness of her soul and request everyone to offer prayers for her departed soul,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Khaleda had advanced \u200bcirrhosis \u200cof the liver, arthritis, diabetes, and chest \u200cand heart \u200cproblems, her doctors said.<\/p>\n
She died at the Evercare Hospital in Dhaka, where she was admitted on November 23 with symptoms of a lung infection, according to The Daily Star.<\/p>\n
During her final days, Bangladesh\u2019s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, had asked the people to pray for Khaleda, calling her a \u201csource of utmost inspiration for the nation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Khaleda was jailed for corruption in 2018 under then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina\u2019s government, which also blocked her from travelling abroad for medical treatment.<\/p>\n
She was released last year, shortly after Hasina was forced from power.<\/p>\n
There had been plans earlier this month to fly her on a special air ambulance to London, but her condition was not stable enough.<\/p>\n
Her son, political heavyweight Tarique Rahman, only returned to Bangladesh after 17 years in self-imposed exile on Thursday, and was welcomed back by large crowds of joyous supporters.<\/p>\n
Rahman will lead the BNP through the February 12 general election, and is expected to be put forward as prime minister if his party wins a majority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Bangladesh\u2019s first female prime minister dies after a prolonged illness in Dhaka, her party says.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3995,18819,4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-377087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-bangladesh","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}