Bangladesh has yet to reconcile sharply different counts of people killed during the July 2024 uprising and its aftermath.
The Ministry of Liberation War Affairs’ latest list of July martyrs contains 843 names, while the UN human-rights office estimated that about 1,400 people may have been killed.
The difference between those figures is more than 500 deaths, and no final reconciled total is identified in the evidence.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published its investigation on 12 February 2025 after a mission that began in September 2024 and lasted about five months.
It assessed deaths from protest-related and subsequent violence between 15 July and 5 August 2024.
The UN office said it had received a Health Ministry list of 841 dead protesters and a National Security Intelligence list containing 314 additional names and dates of death.
It also said it reviewed lists from human-rights and other private organisations, interviewed hospital staff and relatives, consulted morgues, and counted duplicate names only once.
The UN office did not publish a name-by-name list for its estimate.
The UN investigation said at least 13 women may have been among those killed, and that children accounted for an estimated 12 to 13 percent of deaths.
It further said thousands were seriously injured and alleged that more than 11,500 people were arbitrarily detained and tortured.
The UN investigation said most deaths were caused by lethal weapons used by security forces and alleged that former prime minister Sheikh Hasina and former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan directed excessive force against protesters.
A preliminary count by the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement’s health subcommittee and the National Citizen Committee identified about 1,581 deaths nationwide.
Tarequl Islam, then member secretary of the movement’s health subcommittee, said that list was assembled rapidly and lacked complete details for every person named before it was submitted for verification.