The United Nations announced on Friday that it would reduce food aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh due to a funding shortfall.
Several organisations have warned that this action will exacerbate food insecurity and malnutrition in the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Around 730,000 Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, fled to Bangladesh in 2017 to escape a genocidal army crackdown, according to the UN.
Others who left in previous waves were included, and nearly 1 million people live in bamboo and plastic sheet huts.
Beginning next month, the World Food Programme (WFP) will reduce the value of its food assistance from $12 to $10 per person.
According to the World Food Programme, donor budgets have been stretched by the pandemic, economic downturn, and global crises.
The WFP appealed for 125 million dollars in urgent funding, warning of “immense and long-lasting” repercussions on food security and nutrition in camps rife with malnutrition, where more than a third of children are stunted and underweight.
Onno Van Manen, Save the Children’s country director in Bangladesh, in a statement said “the international donor community is now turning its back on half a million Rohingya children and their families.
“This really shows the limits of its commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.”
Two U.N. special rapporteurs, Michael Fakhri and Thomas Andrews, warned of the “devastating consequence” of the funding shortfall, saying it was “unconscionable” to cut rations just before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the U.N. human rights agency said in a statement.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, who is based in Cox’s Bazar, the border district where the refugees live said cuts could cause more Rohingya to take desperate measures to seek work.
Rohingya are barred from working to supplement their income, and Bangladesh has constructed fences around the camps that stop them leaving.
However, an increasing number are fleeing for countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia via perilous and often fatal boat journeys.
This was evident as violent crime adds to longstanding troubles like a lack of educational and work opportunities and bleak prospects of returning to military-ruled Myanmar.
A boat carrying 69 Rohingya landed in Indonesia’s Aceh province on Thursday, the U.N. refugee agency said.
“In few places I’ve worked have camp-based populations had the meagre options of the type that the Rohingya have today,” John Aylieff, WFP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told Reuters.
“It’s unthinkable that the population, with all they’ve been through and with so few other possibilities and options, would on top of everything face a ration cut.”
Arif Ullah, an 18-year-old refugee living in the camps, said the existing food allowance was barely sufficient. “If it’s further trimmed, how will we survive?” (Reuters/NAN)
