Dhaka: The US government’s recent executive order suspending aid funding worldwide has already started to affect the Rohingya sheltering in camps in Bangladesh, a top refugee affairs official said on Thursday.
The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s. Since then, many of them have fled to Bangladesh, with about 700,000 arriving in 2017 after a military crackdown that the UN has been referring to as a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.
Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya are cramped inside 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar district on the southeast coast of Bangladesh — the world’s largest refugee settlement.
The refugees are almost completely reliant on humanitarian aid, which has been declining since the COVID-19 pandemic. The US has been the largest donor, which last year contributed $301 million, or 55 percent of all foreign aid for the Rohingya.
The Donald Trump administration announced in late January it was eliminating most of the US assistance globally.
“The US budget cut will directly impact the Rohingya population, as the United States contributes more than 50 percent of the funding for the Joint Response Plan. Health, sanitation and nutrition sectors will be especially affected if US funding is not available,” Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, told Arab News.
“Several hospitals in the camps have already scaled back their services and are barely managing to stay operational. If the funding issue isn’t resolved by March, these hospitals will be forced to close.”
Fears over how the withdrawal of the largest donor will exacerbate the Rohingya crisis come against the backdrop of renewed conflict in Myanmar, which has forced about 80,000 more Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh since August.
With foreign aid for the Rohingya steadily declining in recent years due to conflicts elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh, already struggling as a host country, is facing an increasingly difficult situation.
“Save the Children, BRAC and UNICEF health care centers have already been affected. Hospital operations are facing significant challenges due to the recent funding cuts implemented by the Trump administration. Some health organizations have even terminated staff members,” Rahman said.
“If US aid eventually stops, we will reach out to other donor countries and agencies to scale up their efforts. At the same time, we will make adjustments by rationalizing our resources. If fundraising efforts fail, the Rohingya population here will ultimately suffer the consequences.”
