UN to slash rations to Rohingya refugees by half to $8 per person per month, official says

DHAKA - The United Nations will cut food rations to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh from US$12.50 (S$16.70) to US$6 (S$8) per person per month from April after failing to find funds, an official said, raising fears among aid workers of rising hunger in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

“Yesterday, I was informed verbally, and today I received the letter confirming a US$6.50 cut, which will take effect from April 1,” said Mr Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s top official overseeing the refugee camps.

“What they are receiving now is already not enough, so it’s hard to imagine the consequences of this new cut,” he told Reuters by phone.

A spokesperson for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Bangladesh is sheltering more than one million Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violent purges in neighbouring Myanmar mostly in 2016 and 2017, in overcrowded camps in the southern Cox’s Bazar district where they have limited access to job opportunities or education.

Roughly 70,000 fled to Bangladesh in 2024, driven in part by growing hunger in their home Rakhine state, Reuters has reported.

In a letter to Mr Rahman, seen by Reuters, the WFP said it had been trying to raise funds to keep the rations at US$12.50 per month but had failed to find donors.

A cut in rations to anything less than US$6 would “fall below the minimum survival level and fail to meet basic dietary needs”, it said.

The WFP said it accepted that “given the refugees’ complete reliance on humanitarian aid”, the cut would strain families struggling to meet basic needs and heighten “increasing tensions within the camps”.

It said it had appealed to multiple donors for funding and that cost-saving measures alone were not enough.

The WFP did not specify if the reduction was due to the decision by the Trump administration in the United States

to cut foreign aid globally

, Mr Rahman said.

But he said it was likely as the US was the top donor to the refugee response.

The US Embassy in Dhaka did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Turmoil in aid sector

The decision by the Trump administration to abruptly halt most US foreign aid and

dismantle the US Agency for International Development

(USAid) has caused turmoil in the humanitarian sector globally, as US-funded programmes providing lifesaving care for millions of people in countries such as Sudan and South Africa received termination notices.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had dismissed concerns that Washington was ending foreign aid, saying waivers had been provided to life-saving services.

The head of the UN refugee agency Filippo Grandi said on Feb 28 in a post on X during a visit to Cox’s Bazaar that if donor support to the camps “decreases dramatically – which may happen – the huge work done by the Bangladesh government, aid agencies and refugees will be impacted, putting thousands at risk of hunger, disease and insecurity”. 

A previous round of ration cuts to Rohingya in 2023 that reduced the amount of food rations to US$8 monthly led to a sharp increase in hunger and malnutrition, according to the UN.

Within months, they said, 90 per cent of the camp population “struggled to access an adequate diet” and more than 15 per cent of children suffered from malnutrition, the highest rate recorded.

The cut was later reversed.

Now, with US$6 monthly, the refugees would receive the equivalent of about 24 Bangladesh taka (27 Singapore cents) daily.

“For comparison, a banana costs around 10-12 taka, and an egg costs 12-14 taka,” said Mr Rahman, the Cox’s Bazar-based official.

USAid has said it has supported the United Nations in providing emergency food and nutrition assistance – including cash transfers for food, food vouchers and in-kind food assistance – to vulnerable populations in Bangladesh and Myanmar since 2017.

Mr Rahman said in February that the US contributed more than 50 per cent of the funds for the Rohingya humanitarian response in 2024, about US$300 million.

The recent aid cuts by Washington meant there was already a “squeeze on operations” at hospitals and in waste management, he said, with five US-funded hospitals having to reduce services.

He said if food were to be reduced, it would create a “grievous problem”.

“These people are stateless, ill-fated and should not be suffering due to the funding crunch,” Mr Rahman said. REUTERS