Human rights groups and agencies have expressed alarm at the widening funding gap between the needs of the Rohingya and the inflows. WFP’s move alone to cut food rations will add significant pressure, said John Quinley of the human rights group Fortify Rights. “The [latest] cuts on food aid will be dire and could lead to significant health consequences for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.”
A looming funding crisis facing Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh underlines the deepening aid shortages and growing unrest in the sprawling camps along the country’s border with Myanmar. Amid the Covid-19 epidemic, Myanmar’s military coup, the Afghan refugee crisis and now the Ukraine situation, Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugees remain in a limbo. Funding for them is running out. Bangladesh is being made to bear the burden of the Rohingyas alone. The international aid for the 1.1 million Rohingyas who have taken refuge in Bangladesh has been greatly reduced. If this continues, a catastrophe is feared.
United Nations officials have warned of a shortfall of more than 50 percent in the $876 million needed this year to provide basic food and shelter for nearly one million refugees living in one of the world’s largest refugee settlements. In a sign of the widening funding gap, the World Food Program in February announced a 17 percent cut in refugee rations for camp dwellers to $10 a month from $12 per person and issued an emergency appeal for $125 million to help make up the shortfall. Japan recently pledged $1 million in response, but as one WFP official said, “The overall silence has been roaring.”
The “ticking time bomb,” according to humanitarian agencies and U.N. officials, is the looming drop in overall funding this year to maintain the Rohingya camps amid growing donor fatigue over other urgent demands, including the fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine, worsening humanitarian problems in Afghanistan and the death or displacement of many millions in Pakistan due to flooding, and in Turkey and Syria after February’s earthquakes. But the Afghan and Ukraine crises have worsened the situation. But the world must remember that Rohingyas are also refugees.
The US State Department has announced nearly $26 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, for those people in Burma affected by ongoing violence, and for communities hosting refugees from Burma.
In such a context, the announcement of the United States humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas will raise optimism. Through this, it is expected that the international community will show sincerity in solving the Rohingya problem in Bangladesh and the world conscience will be awakened.
With this new funding, the US’ total assistance for those affected by the Rakhine State and Rohingya crisis has reached nearly $2.1 billion since August 2017, when over 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee to safety in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, according to a press statement issued by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, during the launch of the 2023 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis in Bangladesh.
According to the official press statement, the new funding includes nearly $24 million for programmes specifically in Bangladesh, providing life-sustaining support to nearly 980,000 Rohingya refugees, many of them survivors of genocide, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, and support to nearly 540,000 host community members in Bangladesh.
In the quest for a strategic role, India, China, and regional actors have yet to establish a concrete position, despite greater opportunities to extend their strategic presence and establish themselves as regional leaders by engaging in the Rohingya repatriation process and peace talks to end the crisis in Myanmar. Their contributions have been minimal in comparison to what the USA has done. While the USA is strongly supporting Bangladesh on the Rohingya issue, unfortunately, China and India’s geopolitical and geo-economic interests in Myanmar leave Bangladesh to manage the Rohingya crisis alone.
The assistance, according to Blinken, sees to it that children and young adults have access to education and vocational training, provides families with food and clean water, strengthens sanitation systems to prevent the spread of disease, supports the protection of Rohingya refugees’ human rights and well-being, bolsters disaster preparedness, and helps combat the effects of climate change.
“We are committed to finding lasting solutions to this crisis, including the safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return and reintegration of displaced Rohingya when conditions in Burma allow. An essential step in ending this crisis is ending the military regime’s brutal repression of its people and agreeing to a pathway to an inclusive multiparty democracy. We commend our humanitarian partners for the lifesaving work they continue to do every day,” read the US statement.
“More than 2,400 Rohingya have sought to leave Bangladesh and Myanmar in 2022 alone, and I am deeply saddened that over 200 have reportedly lost their lives on the way. Recent reports indicate that overcrowded and unsafe boats carrying Rohingyas have been left to drift for days on end without any help,” Turk said in a statement released by the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights called on countries in the region and globally to help Bangladesh support the over one million Rohingya refugees who have sought protection there since 2017.
Since the military overthrew the government on 1 February 2021, the political, economic, and humanitarian crises in Burma have only worsened; according to sources, and there have been close to 3,000 fatalities, 17,000 arrests, and over 1.5 million displaced people. The continued scorched-earth effort by the dictatorship continues to take the lives of innocent people, halting discussions about the return of Rohingya, igniting an escalating military conflict inside Myanmar, and fostering insecurity outside.
Bangladesh continues to house the refugees despite being forced to use a significant portion of her meagre resources to cover expenditures and mitigate effects on her economy, society, and environment.
The USA has contributed the most to the Rohingya crisis so far. It has pledged massive assistance to Bangladesh for the Rohingya. It has been the single most important country in providing funds for them. Since 2017, the USA has provided more than $1.9 billion in humanitarian assistance to people in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other parts of the region. The US was the largest contributor to the JRP fund in 2022, accounting for 50.1 percent of total funding.
The USA, UK and Canada, to date, have imposed sanctions on 80 individuals and 32 entities to deprive the regime of the means to perpetuate its violence and to promote the democratic aspirations of Burma’s people.
The USA remains firm in her position that the regime’s planned elections cannot be free or fair, not while it has killed or detained, possible contenders,or forced them to flee, nor while it continues to inflict brutal violence against its peaceful opponents. The USA vows to continue to promote accountability for the military’s atrocities, including through support to the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar and other international efforts to protect and support vulnerable populations, including Rohingya.
The USA is working with ASEAN, the United Nations (following the recent passage of a UN Security Council Resolution on the situation in Burma), and the international community at large to uphold ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the military, and support a peaceful, democratic, and prosperous Burma.
In December 2022, both Houses of Congress passed a compromise version of the ‘National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)’, an annual piece of legislation that lays out US defense priorities, which serves as a description of US policy towards Myanmar. The fiscal 2023 NDAA includes— US support to return to the democratic government, provide non-military assistance to EAOs and PDFs, funds to support the pro-democracy movement, assist in ethnic reconciliation, protect political prisoners and investigate and document atrocities.
In Decemberr, 24 of the selected 62 Rohingyas left Bangladesh for the USA as part of the US government’s resettlement programme. According to the US Embassy in Dhaka, US President Biden reaffirmed the US commitment to welcoming refugees by keeping the total admissions target in the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for 2022-23 at 125,000, with a regional allocation of 15,000 for East Asia.
Secretary Blinken, State Department Counsellor Derek Chollet, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Julieta Valls Noyes and other top diplomats expressed the same ideology as Bangladesh, that the ‘root cause of the Rohingya crisis lies in Myanmar’ and that ‘safe and dignified repatriation of Rohingyas to Myanmar’ is the only sustainable solution.
In the quest for a strategic role, India, China, and regional actors have yet to establish a concrete position, despite greater opportunities to extend their strategic presence and establish themselves as regional leaders by engaging in the Rohingya repatriation process and peace talks to end the crisis in Myanmar. Their contributions have been minimal in comparison to what the USA has done. While the USA is strongly supporting Bangladesh on the Rohingya issue, unfortunately, China and India’s geopolitical and geo-economic interests in Myanmar leave Bangladesh to manage the Rohingya crisis alone.
Despite increasingly competing aid priorities, the Rohingya crisis should still be core to the international agenda, because nearly a million Rohingya genocide survivors still dwell in the darkness,” he said. “With no hopes for safe repatriation and under many restrictions, they are reliant on international aid. They have little or no rights as refugees, and aid cuts will result in severe malnutrition and hunger. The highest cost will be paid by the most vulnerable — women and children.
