The UN refugee agency has warned that Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are at risk of losing essential services due to an ongoing struggle to raise sufficient funds.
Bangladesh is hosting more than 1.3 million Rohingya refugees on its southeastern coast, the world’s largest refugee population. In the past 18 months, nearly 150,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state, the largest influx since 2017.
In 2017, some 750,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a deadly crackdown by the Myanmar military, which the United Nations has described as “an example of ethnic cleansing.”
“Due to severe global funding shortages, critical needs of both newly arrived and already present refugees will not be met, and essential services for the entire Rohingya refugee community are at risk of collapse,” the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement issued on Friday (July 11).
Only 35 percent of UNHCR’s $255 million appeal for the Rohingya has been funded.
The organization said that without additional funding, healthcare for the Rohingya population in Bangladesh will be severely disrupted by September, and essential cooking fuel, or LPG, will run out. Food aid will cease by December.
Aid from major donors such as the United States and other Western countries has declined sharply under US President Donald Trump, which has had a major impact on the humanitarian sector.
Rohingya children’s education has already been affected, with the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF forced to close thousands of learning centers in Cox’s Bazar last month, worsening the education crisis for some 437,000 children in the camps.
“The funding crisis for the Rohingya is now in a very dire state,” Mizanur Rahman, the Commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation in Cox’s Bazar, told Arab News on Saturday (July 12). “The health sector has been severely affected by the funding crisis. Many health centers have suspended their services, which has severely affected thousands of pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, newborns, and children.”
He also said that the authorities have not been able to arrange new shelters for the newly arrived Rohingya. Most of them are now living with relatives who came earlier.
Mizanur Rahman also told Arab News that site management, including water and sanitation issues, is also at risk. Shelter management is facing a dire situation. The ongoing crisis could force the Rohingya into complete despair.
