WFP's food budget reduction hampers nutrition supply to Rohingya in Bangladesh

By Md. Kamruzzaman and SM Najmus Sakib

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA) - Anwara Begum, an elderly Rohingya woman, has been struggling at a congested refugee camp in Bangladesh with her family since an August 2017 exodus following a brutal military crackdown in their home country of Myanmar.

In the last five-and-a-half years of her existence as a forcefully displaced person in the refugee camp, the main challenge for Begum was to manage food to get minimal nutrition for her family.

And now the recent news of the World Food Program’s (WFP) decision to slash food support for Rohingya refugees due to a funding crisis has hit Begum like a thunderbolt.

Begum told Anadolu on the telephone that she has hardly found any food for her 1-year-old granddaughter who needs additional nutrition besides breast milk.

“We, most of the Rohingya people here in the Kutupalong refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, don’t have sufficient food to eat. A $12 allocation per person was still far from the need to meet food support for survival, now it has been cut further,” she said. “It has become a double blow amid a growing price hike of daily commodities and food items. Food cuts before the month of Ramadan will further intensify our struggle for nutrition. We could not consume animal protein for weeks.”

The WFP, the leading humanitarian organization of the UN that provides food assistance to vulnerable communities, announced last month that food rations for Rohingya refugees who mostly live in the southern coastal district of Cox's Bazar and Bhasan Char island would be reduced by 17% beginning March 1, to $10 per person from $12 a month.

The WFP cited a sharp drop in international funding for the decision and said further cuts were likely in April unless donors provided an urgent $125 million.

More than 1.2 million forcibly displaced Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have been housed in 33 congested refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. Most fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine State in the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation.

- Situation to worsen ahead of holy month of Ramadan

Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, 25, a refugee and young activist in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp told Anadolu that he has to take care of a six-member family in camp-3 in Kutupalong, including a handicapped sibling and an elderly mother.

“We cannot afford a healthy diet with the existing food assistance of the UN and the situation would get worse in the holy month of Ramadan,” he said.

Medecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF), recently said cuts in food in Cox’s Bazar will increase the risk of malnutrition and have a serious effect on health.

The WFP cut rations by 17%, bringing the number of calories per person below the accepted minimum standard of 2,100 calories per day, according to the medical charity group.

A reduced calorie intake puts people at risk of malnutrition and anemia and weakens their immune systems, increasing the risk of future outbreaks of infectious diseases such as measles and cholera, it warned.

Last year, 12% of pregnant women at Kutupalong hospital and Balukhali clinic were diagnosed with acute malnutrition and 30% with anemia, said MSF.

Citing data preserved by different global bodies, including the UN, Nay San Lwin, Co-founder of Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC), told Anadolu that such a harsh decision would deepen food insecurity and malnutrition in the world’s largest refugee settlement in Bangladesh, while more than one-third of children there are already stunted and underweight.

"Our humble request to the UN to review this harsh decision, step up their support for the Rohingya people and exert effective pressure on Myanmar military and authorities to stop atrocity crimes and ensure voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable repatriation of all Rohingya refugees to their original homes and places in Arakan (currently Rakhine) with suitable reparation," said Lwin.

- Do not ‘cut a single penny in the food and health budget’

Health coordinator at the office of Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner (RRRC) in Bangladesh, Dr. Abu Toha MR Bhuiyan told Anadolu that WFP’s move must put an adverse effect on the already short supply of nutrition for Rohingya.

Underlining food and health as the top two needs of every human, he urged the UN and other donors not to cut the budget for food and health sectors at Rohingya refugee camps.

“My request to the UN and all other donors not to cut a single penny in the food and health budget for the Rohingya for their survival as human beings,” said Bhuiyan.

Referring to a declaration by Japan to provide an additional $1 million in emergency food assistance to the WFP for Rohingya refugees as a good sign, he hoped it would be an inspiration for others.

“This figure is very minor in comparison to the necessity but this is an encouraging initiative of Japan for other donors and assistance providers,” he said.

This doctor also urged global leaders to reduce the budget to produce destructive weapons in case of a funding crisis and not curtail the budget for food for a vulnerable community that mostly depends on assistance for its survival.