Rohingya mothers fear hunger as UN further reduces food rations
Rohingya refugee mothers living in Bangladeshi camps are fearing hunger and health complications for their already malnourished children as the World Food Programme will further decrease their rations next month — after already cutting them earlier this year.
The WFP announced earlier this week that a lack of funding will force it to cut food aid for around 1 million Rohingya starting June 1. This will be the second time in three months that the UN agency is slashing food aid for the refugees sheltering in Bangladesh. With the new cuts in place, the value of food assistance will be reduced from $12 to $8, or more than 33 percent since March. Many Rohingya families, especially those where mothers are the sole breadwinners, are entirely dependent on aid. Kowsar Begum, 40, who lost her husband several years ago, has already been struggling since the first reductions.
“It has become very tough to feed the children three proper meals in
a day. I am worried about how I will manage the food for my children with the new cuts from next week,” the mother of six told Arab News over the phone from Cox’s Bazar, which has been home to most of the Rohingya who escaped deadly violence and persecution in neighboring Myanmar during a military crackdown in 2017.
“All of my children are suffering from malnutrition. They look very skinny,” Begum said. “As a mother, it’s unbearable for me to look at their faces.”
Malnutrition is already a problem in the cramped camps, where international aid for the Rohingya has been decreasing since 2020.
The rations currently provided to the Rohingya are already insufficient and further reductions would pose grave health problems for the refugee population. Already before the first cuts, UN special rapporteurs warned that the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh was food insecure, with more than a third of children stunted and underweight.
Dr. Abu Toha, health coordinator at the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission in Cox’s Bazar told Arab News that with the further cuts, malnutrition among the Rohingya will soar.
“It will trigger an increase in malnutrition-related diseases. Eventually, the immunity of these people will also be reduced,” he said.
“We have been doing some programs targeting malnourished children, which offered extra nutritional support … If the funds are cut, this sort of program will definitely be hampered in the coming days.”
Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the Rohingya it is hosting cannot be legally employed to earn their livelihood.