UN experts condemn second round of food aid cut for Rohingya refugees

The cut will affect approximately 1 million Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar

June 08, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch
Rohingya refugess Cox Bazar Bangladesh
Rohingya refugees in Cox Bazar Bangladesh. File Photo: CAPTAIN RAJU, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

United Nations (UN) experts have condemned a second cut in food aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh due to a shortfall of $56 million at the World Food Programme (WFP). The cut will affect approximately 1 million Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar. Individual monthly rations had been cut from $12 to $10 in March and fell to $8 from June 1.

UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis, has called on the international community for more support and donations as only 24.6% of the Rohingya Humanitarian Joint Response Plan is currently funded. “People living in Rohingya camps are barred from working and they are completely dependent on international community funding,” Lewis noted.

As per UN estimates, almost 45% of Rohingya families do not get a sufficient diet and many refugees are reportedly already skipping meals. “In the span of three months, Rohingya refugees have seen their food rations cut by a third, further eroding the health and security of a population already suffering from severe trauma and deprivation,” the UN experts said. 

They also stressed that children, pregnant women, and other most vulnerable people in the community will suffer the most from the cuts in daily rations. The UN has estimated that “Forty percent of Rohingya children experienced stunted growth, and more than half suffered from anemia.” 

“The consequences of the rations cuts will be devastatingly predictable: spiking rates of acute malnutrition, infant mortality, violence, and even death. It also will contribute to increased regional instability, and some Rohingya may decide that it is better to trust their lives to traffickers and smugglers and risk their lives at sea, than to face hunger and even death in the camps,” the UN experts warned.