LEICESTER, United Kingdom – Aid to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh will be cut more than half by the UN World Food Program (WFP), according to a letter made public on Wednesday.
The statement said “severe funding shortfalls” are forcing a cut in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6 per person.
“What we’re seeing here is the impact of reduced funding for essential aid that preserves life at its most basic level. It’s pretty straightforward: Removing aid from food programs serving the world’s poorest, means people will starve,” said Phil Talman, who supports Bangladesh for CAFOD, the international aid agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
CAFOD says this is one of the “first, tangible examples” of the impact of reduced funding for overseas aid, mostly from the United States after the election of President Donald Trump.
There over a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in camps in Bangladesh.
Most of the Rohingya at the Bangladesh camps have arrived from Myanmar since August 2017, when the military began conducting clearance operations after a series of rebel attacks in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. The Rohingya are Muslims and have long faced discrimination in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, including being denied citizenship since 1982.
The military coup in Myanmar in February 2021 further heightened their vulnerability.
The population density of the camps is staggering: About 103,600 per square mile, more than 40 times the average population density in Bangladesh as a whole – and it is one of the most crowded countries on earth.
Refugees live in side-by-side plastic huts, each just a little larger than 100 square feet, and some holding a dozen residents.
The UN letter – revealed by Reuters – said the decision to cut aid was “due to resource constraints.”
“Unfortunately, we have still not received sufficient funding, and cost-saving measures alone are not enough,” the letter said.
The United Nations runs 10 different vocational training courses offered to young people in the camps in Cox’s Bazar.
“Recent freezes of aid resources by donors have made all this work much more difficult,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“I just met young refugees who are trying to acquire skills, to get an education. If international assistance dwindles, it will be really tragic, especially for the hundreds of thousands of youth living in this very challenging place who will have no prospects for their future,” he said.
Partha Protim Mazumder, who is part of UNHCR’s livelihoods team in Cox’s Bazar, said they are targeting young people because they don’t have many opportunities.
“Without meaningful engagement, they have little else to occupy them, which can lead to frustration and other challenges,” he said.
CAFOD is supporter of aid efforts for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Talman said the United Kingdom is one of the top aid donors to the Rohingya refugee crisis, and said even the current rations is “already barely enough to maintain life.”
“If the WFP has to cut that in half, it may result in dire food shortages and malnutrition. If UK cuts to Bangladesh are to follow, the consequences for the region could be catastrophic,” he said.
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