Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Year : 2, Issue: 28
Arafatul Islam, DW: Shafika is one of the over 700,000 Rohingya people who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched a “clearance operation” in the country’s western Rakhine state.
The ethnic group faces discrimination and statelessness as they are denied citizenship and other rights in Myanmar.
Shafika ended up in overcrowded refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar district in southern Bangladesh, where over a million Rohingya are currently estimated to live.
The 38-year old refugee, together with six of her family members, lives in a hut in Kutupalong, one of the country’s oldest refugee camps.
Following a military coup in 2021, Myanmar has been engulfed in a civil war, which has pushed even more Rohingya to seek refuge in Bangladesh.
The refugees depend on the food rations provided by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) for their survival.
But the WFP recently announced that there will be cuts to food rations supplied to Cox’s Bazar from April 1. The agency cited funding shortfall for the decision, but did not elaborate on the reasons behind it.
“Without urgent new funding, monthly rations must be halved to $6 (€5.5) per person, down from $12.50 per person,” the WFP said in a statement last week.
To sustain full rations, the organization said, it urgently requires $15 million for April and $81 million until the end of 2025.
‘What will we eat?’
Shafika said the WFP’s announcement “felt like a heart attack” for the people living in the camps. “How would we survive if they reduced rations, and what would we eat? We are not allowed to work outside,” she told DW. “We get arrested, kidnapped, or even killed if we go out to work. We starve,” she added.
Shafika fears that the law and order situation in the camps could deteriorate even further if the decision is not reversed. “Stealing and robbery could surge if they reduce rations. Our kids will be kidnapped for ransom. Where will we get money to free them?” Mohammad Esha, another Rohingya refugee, echoed this view.
He also fears a surge in crime if the ration cuts come into effect.
“We want to work to survive. But the NGOs here don’t give us work. Our shops get demolished if we try to do business. We don’t have any other income sources, which keeps us solely dependent on the rations,” Esha told DW.
US aid cuts behind food funding shortage?
Although the WFP didn’t explain the reasons behind the funding shortfall, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner (RRRC), believes US President Donald Trump’s decision to abruptly stop most foreign aid and dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) could have played a major role. Shortly after he returned to the White House, Trump signed an executive order freezing US foreign assistance for a 90-day review, a move that has significantly hampered the global humanitarian sector.
“As far as I know, 80% of WFP funds come from the US. If the US were to withdraw the 90-day fund freezing decision imposed on January 20, then I think the warning issued by the WFP would not have been implemented,” Rahman, who is responsible for managing Rohingya refugees, told DW.
The European Union, meanwhile, has announced that it will increase financial assistance to the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
“The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are the largest stateless population in the world. We thank Bangladesh for their solidarity in hosting them. The EU has increased humanitarian aid to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, in the broader region & for the Myanmar crisis,” Hadja Lahbib, EU commissioner for preparedness and crisis management, tweeted during her visit to Bangladesh earlier this month.
