More than a million Rohingya refugees have sought safety in Bangladesh since the military of Myanmar launched a merciless onslaught against the Rohingya communities dispersed throughout the western region of the country's Rakhine state in 2017.
The costs and repercussions on Bangladesh's economy, society, and environment used up a significant portion of the nation's limited resources. Yet Bangladesh never got enough financial aid for Rohingya refugees. Rather, over time, the amount of support has been declining.
Bangladesh received a little over 50% of the necessary funding in 2022, while donors provided only 60% in 2020 -- down from about 72% to 75% two years earlier. The 2023 appeal, which requested $876 million, has only been 24.6% funded as of June -- making Rohingya refugees particularly vulnerable this year.
More than a million Rohingya are being abandoned by the international donor community. So, for the second time in three months, WFP is compelled to reduce the amount of life-saving aid it provides to all Rohingya residing in the camps in Cox's Bazar. Due to a $56m shortage, the value of the food given to Rohingya refugees now drops to $8 per month or 27 cents per day.
At the beginning of the year, refugees were receiving rations from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) of $12 per person per month -- just enough to meet their daily needs. However, on March 1, due to lack of funding, the rations were reduced to $10. The vouchers are used to purchase 13kg of rice per person, as well as other food products. Having received “only a small portion of the required funding for 2023,” WFP said they had to reduce the entitlements, “or we will have no funds left very soon.”
Consequences of the aid cut
45% of Rohingya families are not eating a sufficient diet. The Global Acute Malnutrition rate for children stands at 12%, just below the 15% of WHO “emergency” threshold but still categorized as “serious.” Some 40% of children have stunted growth and 40% of pregnant and breastfeeding women are anaemic -- all of this was before the ration cut.
UN experts have warned that the consequences of the cut on rations 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.”
Aid void
Funding for other protracted crises in 2022 and 2023 seems to coincide with overwhelming political interest in, and donor pledges for Ukraine. For instance, while the 2021 Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan was very well funded, at 112.8%, in 2022 it has received less than 50% of its funding appeal.
Since January 2022, the US government has committed more than $76.8 billion in assistance to Ukraine. The 2022 “Stand Up for Ukraine” global pledging campaign raised $8.9bn. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric stated: “This is among the fastest and most generous responses a humanitarian flash appeal has ever received.”
At the 2022 international donor conference on Yemen -- a country of 23.4 million people in dire crisis with war and famine -- the UN appealed for $4.3bn for humanitarian aid. World leaders offered less than one-third of that. This so-called “aid void” is increasing for Myanmar, the Sahel, and Ethiopia.
The European commissioner for crisis management had explicitly stated that the European Commission would not pull funds from other crises around the world as it responds to the conflict in Ukraine. Other EU ministers made similar commitments.
But individual EU member states have already begun diverting funds, as real-time aid data shows. For instance, Sweden and Denmark have announced cuts to other aid priorities that equate to 14% and 10% of their respective 2021 aid budgets. Sweden has already reallocated $150,000 from Sri Lanka -- where millions face poverty following its severe economic crisis and political turbulence since March 2022 -- to Ukraine.
Denmark announced that it would defer development aid it had earmarked for Syria, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Bangladesh to fund the reception of fleeing Ukrainians.
The UK has recently announced that it will halt all “non-essential” aid spending. It is estimated this may result in that spending budget being reduced by 25% with further cuts in aid to countries like Sudan and Syria, in addition to those already implemented since 2020.
Germany has shown a similar trend. Excluding the generous support for Ukraine, the US has also cut its humanitarian budget by $1bn relative to 2021. In the West Bank and Gaza, critical programs had already been curtailed and food rations had been severely reduced in Yemen.
The Rohingya crisis, recognized as the fastest and largest refugee influx since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, must not be sidelined along with those suffering in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
Nur-Mohammad Sheikh is an Associate Professor & Security Affairs Analyst.
