The United Nations Plans To Cut Food Aid Due To Funds, Rohingya Refugees: How Do We Hold?

Illustration of the Rohingya Muslim Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. (Wikimedia Commons/Tauheed)

JAKARTA - The United Nations (UN) plans to cut food aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, blaming the lack of funds for cuts that agencies warned on Friday, will deepen food insecurity and malnutrition in the world's largest refugee settlements.

About 730.000 Rohingya citizens, mostly Muslim minorities persecuted from Myanmar's Rakhine State, fled to Bangladesh in 2017 to avoid an army crackdown that the UN said was carried out with the intention of genocide.

Including other people who went in the previous wave, nearly 1 million people live in huts made of bamboo and plastic sheets in the area.

The World Food Program (WFP) said it would reduce the value of its food aid to 10 US dollars per person from 12 US dollars starting next month. It is known, the donor budget is affected by the pandemic, the economic decline and crisis around the world.

The WFP has asked for urgent funding of $125 million, warning of a "very large and long-lasting" impact on food and nutrition security in camps full of malnutrition, where more than a third of children are hampered in growth and lack of weight.

"That the international donor community is now rejecting half a million Rohingya children and their families, really showing limits on their commitment to some of the most vulnerable people in the world," Onno Van Manen, director of Bangladesh's Save the Children state in a statement.

Two UN-specific whistleblowers, Michael Fakhri and Thomas Andrews, warned of the "destroying consequences" of the lack of funds, saying it was "absurd" to cut rations before the Holy Month of Ramadan, the UN human rights agency said in a statement.

Separately, cuts could lead to more Rohingya taking desperate measures to find work, said Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh's repatriation commissioner and refugee aid, based in Cox's Bazar, the border district where refugees live.

The Rohingya ethnicity is barred from working to increase their income, while Bangladesh has built fences around camps preventing them from leaving.

In addition, more and more people fled to countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia via dangerous and often fatal boat trips, as violent crimes add to the longstanding problems, such as lack of educational opportunities and jobs as well as a grim prospect of returning to military-controlled Myanmar.

"In some places I've worked on, camp-based populations have few choices like the current Rohingya," John A layoff, WFP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told Reuters.

"It didn't think that the population, with everything they've been through and with so few possibilities and other options, above all will face a cut in rations," he said.

Arif Ullah, an 18-year-old refugee who lives in the camp, said the existing food allowances were almost insufficient.

"If it is cut further, how can we survive?" he said.