On Friday, UN leader Antonio Guterres declared the agency would “everything” to stop food supplies being reduced for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Attending Iftar with the largely Muslim persecuted minority, Guterres visited Rohingya refugees in the camps in Cox’s Bazar for a display of solidarity. After the 2017 military crackdown, many of the one million refugees living in the filthy relief camps fled fighting in nearby Myanmar; now, severe humanitarian aid cuts threaten them.
Guterres claimed that “dramatic” decreases in humanitarian aid declared by the United States and other nations indicated a “risk to cut food rations in this camp.” “I can promise that we will do everything to avoid it and I will be talking to all countries in the world that can help us in order to make sure that funds are made available to avoid a situation in which people would suffer even more and that some people would even die,” Guterres said.
More than 100,000 people ate the fast-breaking sunset meal with Guterres; some of them carried signs declaring, “No more refugee life” and, “We are Rohingyas, not stateless.” Guterres said it was “essential” that peace be rebuilt in Myanmar, that “rights of the Rohingyas are respected,” and that “discrimination and persecution like the one we have witnessed in the past, will end.”
Unicef reports that children living in Bangladeshi camps are suffering the greatest degrees of malnutrition since 2017.
Members of Dhaka’s temporary administration followed him, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, chief adviser. Shock waves were sent through the humanitarian community when US President Donald Trump froze foreign aid in January awaiting a review.
Aid funding shortages would force a reduction in monthly food vouchers from $12.50 to $6.00 per person at the camps, the UN World Food Program said this month. For Rohingya living in the packed camps, who depend on charity and suffer from widespread hunger, successive aid cuts have already caused great suffering.
With admissions for severe malnutrition treatment up 27% in February compared with the same months in 2024, UN children’s agency Unicef claimed children living in the camps were suffering the worst degrees of malnutrition since 2017.
According to Unicef’s agent in Bangladesh Rana Flowers, canceled US donations for Bangladesh accounted for around a quarter of her agency’s Rohingya refugee response expenses. Bangladesh has struggled to assist its refugee population, and Dhaka has indicated it is looking at means of obtaining more help for Rohingya refugees.
Speaking with Yunus earlier on Friday in Dhaka, Guterres remarked he valued the UN’s “close cooperation” with Dhaka. Living in camps near Cox’s Bazar, Rohingya people are nearly totally dependent on meager humanitarian help to exist and are not permitted to look for work.
