UN seeks urgent fund to face new Rohingya ration cuts
Staff Reporter :
The UN on Thursday condemned a second cut in food rations for Rohingya refugees who are sheltering in the country, after a funding shortfall of $56 million compelled the World Food Programme (WFP) to enforce the cuts.
The cuts will reduce the value of rations provided to Rohingya refugees to $8 per month, or 27 cents per day. At the beginning of the year, refugees were receiving a ration of $12 per person per month, which was just enough to meet daily needs, but on 1 March, that was cut to $10 – due to lack of funding support, UN said on its website.
“We are extremely concerned that WFP has been forced to cut food aid for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh,” said the UN Resident Coordinator in Bangladesh, Gwyn Lewis.
“The nutrition and health consequences will be devastating, particularly for women and children and the most vulnerable in the community. We urgently appeal for international support,” she pointed out.
Mentioning the Rohingya dependence on rations, Gwyn Lewis said, “Only 24.6 percent of the Rohingya response is funded to provide basic health services, nutrition, food, and education for refugees who do not have any other source of support.”
People living in Rohingya camps are barred from working by Bangladeshi authorities, “and they are completely dependent on international community funding,” added Lewis.
Apart from Lewis, three UN Human Rights Council-appointed independent experts who are monitoring the situation also echoed the consequences of this ration cut.
Tom Andrews, Michael Fakhri, and Olivier De Schutter warned that the cuts will have devastating consequences, and urged donors to provide enough funds to restore rations in full.
“The consequences of the rations cuts will be devastatingly predictable: spiking rates of acute malnutrition, infant mortality, violence, and even death,” they said.
“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 independent UN experts warned.
Rohingya refugees are particularly vulnerable this year because the 2023 Appeal seeking USD 876 million dollars is only 24.6% funded as of 1 June resulting in other critical programmes and activities are also being cut.
“Member States must urgently act to close the $56 million funding shortfall for food rations that has led to these cuts. Member States that have not yet provided financial support to the Rohingya should do so without delay,” the experts said.
“The failure to provide Rohingya families in Bangladesh with sustainable levels of food is a stain on the conscience of the international community. They are in Bangladesh not by choice, but because of genocidal attacks by the Myanmar military,” the experts concluded.
