Rohingya food aid to be slashed from next month

The World Food Programme (WFP) is set to slash food aid for the Rohingya in Bangladesh due to a significant funding shortfall amid crises in various parts of the world.

At present, each refugee in the camps gets monthly food aid of $12. However, now the entire Rohingya population will be categorised into three segments -- highly vulnerable group, vulnerable and moderately vulnerable groups -- for the food ration.

Image

The highly vulnerable segment of the Rohingya will get $12, the moderately vulnerable segment will get $10 and the vulnerable segment will get $7 a month, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the Refugee, Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC), told The Daily Star.

This reduced ration will be activated from April 1.

The vulnerability level has been determined mainly by socioeconomic conditions. About 33 percent of the 1.2 million Rohingya have been categorised as highly vulnerable, 50 percent as moderately vulnerable and 17 percent as vulnerable, Rahman said.

The funding shortage was already on the decline in the last several years, but it accelerated after the Donald Trump administration drastically withdrew funding, said an official of the UN High Commissioner for the Refugees in Bangladesh.

“The Rohingya were feeling the impact since early 2025, but now, it will be even more. Funding shortage will have a direct impact on the health and overall wellbeing of the refugees,” the official said.

The total funding requirement for the Rohingya in 2025 was $934 million, but only 53 percent of the sum was received, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

In 2024, 64 percent of the funding was received, in 2023 71 percent and in 2022 70 percent.

After the US cut funding worldwide, the WFP had decided to halve monthly rations to the Rohingya to $6 per person ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr last year.

The ration cut did not take place after the Trump administration announced $73 million in new aid to the Rohingya through the WFP.

“As of now, we have not received any new funding commitment from the US this year. Plus, overall funding has now declined significantly,” said the UN official, preferring anonymity.

The UN and the Bangladesh government, meanwhile, will be launching the Joint Response Plan (JRP) to the UN in Geneva in April or May.

The JRP is now pending with the foreign ministry for review, the UN official said.

Given the current global scenario, the fund requirement has now been revised down by 26 percent from 2025, he added.

According to the office of the RRRC, there are 1.2 million Rohingya, including new arrivals of 144,000.

About 750,000 Rohingya fled the military campaign in 2017, and annually, about 30,000 babies are born in the refugee camp, while new influxes take place every day.

“Rohingya continue to enter Bangladesh every day -- that’s the report that we are getting from the field despite our border forces keeping a strong watch along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border,” said RRRC Rahman.

The situation in Rakhine State -- call it security, socio-economic or health -- still remains worrisome as the Myanmar military and Arakan Army continue to be locked in battle, according to the UN and government officials.

Therefore, Rohingya repatriation is still a far cry, which contradicts the then Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’s pledge made on March 14 last year.

After joining an iftar with one lakh Rohingyas at the Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar in the presence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he had pledged to work collectively with the UN to ensure that the Rohingyas can celebrate Eid this year by returning to their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

After the new government was formed in February, the foreign ministry is taking stock of various stakeholders on the next course of action on the Rohingya.

“Given the current situation in Rakhine State, I don’t think we can start the repatriation anytime soon. We would give a special focus on this, however, to make it happen at the soonest,” a foreign ministry official told this correspondent yesterday.