Bangladesh street kitchens battle to keep free food on the menu

Hundreds of unemployed or struggling workers and homeless children are fed at Mehmankhana or ‘dining place for guests’.

Mohammad Masud braves Dhaka’s sweltering summer heat to pedal across the Bangladeshi capital in his rickshaw and queue at one of the last charities still feeding those left destitute by the pandemic. Nearby are hundreds of out-of-work or struggling security guards, transport workers, domestic servants and homeless children finishing their plates of rice and lentils at Mehmankhana, or the “dining place for guests”. “I have been hungry all day,” 28-year-old Masud told AFP news agency. “I did not make enough to buy food.”