UN food agency seeks urgent funding to avoid aid cuts to Rohingya

NEW DELHI - The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) called on Friday for urgent funding for its Bangladesh operations, warning that a funding deficit would curb rations for the Rohingya in the worlds largest refugee settlement.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the United Nations would have to cut food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from $12.50 to $6 per month in April after failing to secure funding.

While the WFP has not specified whether the reduction was due to the Trump administrations decision to cut U.S. foreign aid globally, an official has told Reuters it was likely as the United States had been the top donor in the Rohingya crisis.

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh remain entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance for their survival. Any reduction in food assistance will push them deeper into hunger and force them to resort to desperate measures just to survive, Dom Scalpelli, WFP Country Director in Bangladesh, said in a statement.

The WFP said it had already started communicating with the Rohingya community about the potential ration cuts.

Bangladesh is sheltering more than one million Rohingya - members of a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violent purges in neighbouring Myanmar mainly in 2016 and 2017 - in overcrowded camps in the Coxs Bazar district, where they have only limited access to job opportunities or education.

Growing hunger in their home state of Rakhine in Myanmar drove out a majority of the 70,000 Rohingya who arrived in Bangladesh last year, Reuters reported.

The funding cuts in March come during the holy month of Ramadan and the WFP estimates it will need $15 million in April to sustain full rations. REUTERS

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