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Food rations for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have been slashed in half by the World Food Programme, days after refugees in Kenya protested against a reduction to their rations.
The WFP, which is funded entirely by voluntary contributions and provides assistance to more than 150 million people, said it did not have enough funds to continue to provide the full ration so would be reducing the food voucher to 726 Bangladeshi taka (£4.60) per person, from 1,515 taka.
The agency told refugee authorities in Bangladesh the decision had been made after attempts to raise more funds had been unsuccessful and because cost-saving measures could not cover the funding shortfall.
Daniel Sullivan, the director for Africa, Asia, and the Middle East at Refugees International, said the cut to aid for Rohingya refugees was a result of “indefensible harm” caused by aid cuts by the US, UK and others.
While aid budgets had already been stretched, further strain was added in January by Donald Trump’s freeze on US aid spending and then the UK’s decision in February to cut aid spending from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.
Sullivan said: “This sudden and drastic reduction of vital daily food will be devastating for over a million refugees. The decision will also result in huge knock-on effects for the health and safety of the largest refugee settlement in the world.”
He said that when food rations were previously cut in 2023, until the US filled a funding shortfall, there was an increase in malnutrition and gender-based violence.
Sullivan said: “With USAid decimated, and other donors following suit with their own reductions, the outlook for restored food aid is dismal and will lead to the loss of life.”
The monthly food voucher is provided on a card issued to the refugees, which they must spend at WFP outlets in the camps. Refugees said that at current costs the voucher would amount to enough to buy 10kg of rice, 1.5kg of lentils and 500g of salt.
Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, the refugee relief and repatriation commissioner of Bangladesh, said Rohingya refugees had already been “barely surviving” with the existing monthly food ration.
He said: “Cutting the ration over half will have a horrible impact on refugee health and nutrition. Children and women will bear the brunt of this cut, as they make up about 78% of the refugee population here.
“In fact, this cut could also lead to crime in the community as refugees struggle to make ends meet. Maintaining law and order in and around the camps will be extra challenging for the government now.”
More than 1.3 million Rohingya refugees live in the camps of Cox’s Bazar. Nur Qadr, a Rohingya teacher who lives in the Jamtoli refugee camp, said: “It feels like the world wants to starve us to death.
“We are human beings, just like the people in [western] nations. We are already barely making it through.”
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Jafor Alom, a Rohingya refugee in Balukhali camp, said that the prices of food and other basic necessities had more than doubled in Bangladesh over the past four years.
He said: “To cope with the situation, we had actually been praying for an increase in the $12.50 [£9.70] food ration. But now, they are cutting down the ration even further. We all have to starve now.”
Last week, the WFP informed refugees in Kenya that it would be reducing their food rations to 3kg of cereals a month and would no longer provide beans or oil – which would amount to 40% of the full ration.
The move prompted protests in the Kakuma refugee camp, which hosts 300,000 people, and four refugees were injured in clashes with Kenyan police.
The WFP also said this week that a million people in Somalia could fall into crisis levels of hunger because of conflict, drought and inflation but that it would have to reduce the support it provided because it was $300m short of funding for the next six months.
In a statement on the situation in Somalia, it said: “As humanitarian needs grow, limited funding is resulting in life-saving programmes being reduced or cut altogether. From April, WFP will support 820,000 vulnerable people per month with food and cash assistance – down from a peak of 2.2 million reached monthly in 2024.”
