Countries Cut Aid to UN Agency Assisting Rohingya after Fire Further Displaces Thousands

By Yousuf Ali

On March 7, the World Food Program announced that it was going to decrease food aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, a country where hundreds of thousands of refugees are. Rohingya are an ethnic group native to the Rakhine State in Myanmar who have had to flee genocide in their own country enabled the by the country’s military and perpetrated in the name of Buddhism. The cuts are due to decreases in aid by countries which were previously helping to keep the program growing. This is despite please by the organization itself and the Bangladeshi government.

According to Al Jazeera, “More than one million Rohingya refugees live in camps in Cox’s Bazar, most having fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017. The United Nations and the Bangladesh government on Tuesday called for more international aid to help the Rohingya in what has turned into the world’s largest refugee camp. “The response plan that has been launched today is asking for $883m from the international community,” Shahariar Sadat, an academic at Dhaka’s BRAC University.’ Furthermore Doctors Without Borders warned that the cut would risk the health of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya. Furthermore, the aid cut comes despite a fire which left thousands homeless further adding to the plight of these refugees.

The dense and congested nature of the camps makes them vulnerable to serious damage if a fire starts enabling it to spread quickly before being put out. The fire was in Southeastern Bangladesh and left 12,000 refugees homeless and destroyed 2,000 shelters. As of writing, the precise cause is not known and is being investigated.

According to Al Jazeera, “Fires often break out in the crowded camp with makeshift structures. A massive blaze in March 2021 killed at least 15 refugees and destroyed more than 10,000 homes.Resident Shafiur Rahman, 24, urged the authorities to provide better facilities. “Our homes were torched in Myanmar. Now we are going through the same here,” he said. Amnesty International also called on the Bangladesh government to provide safer accommodation for the refugees. “The government should recognise the danger of keeping large communities in unsafe, over-crowded conditions and take steps to provide adequate and safe housing to the Rohingya community,” Yasasmin Kaviratne, the organisation’s South Asia regional campaigner, said.”

Meanwhile, Myanmar is now under military rule with no prospects of improving treatment of the Rohingya. For that reason, it’s unlikely they will be able to return to Myanmar any time soon.