'We are simply going to starve': UN chief visits Rohingya refugees amid aid funding shortfall

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is visiting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as their food rations face drastic cuts amid a funding shortfall, threatening already dire living conditions in the world’s largest refugee settlement.

Guterres’ visit on Friday to the border district of Cox's Bazar — his second to Bangladesh — is seen as crucial after the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) announced potential cuts to food rations, following the shutdown of USAID operations.

The WFP has said it may reduce food rations for the Rohingya from $12.50 to just $6 per month starting in April because of a lack of funding, raising fears among aid workers of rising hunger in the overcrowded camps.

"Whatever we are given now is not enough. If that’s halved, we are simply going to starve,” said Mohammed Sabir, a 31-year-old refugee from Myanmar who has lived in the camps since fleeing violence in 2017.

The WFP said earlier this month that the reduction was due to a broad shortfall in donations, not the Trump administration's decision to cut U.S. foreign aid globally, including USAID. But a senior Bangladeshi official told Reuters that most likely played a role, as the United States has been the top donor for Rohingya refugee aid.

Bangladesh is sheltering more than 1 million Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violent purges in neighbouring Myanmar mostly in 2016 and 2017, in camps in the southern Cox’s Bazar district, where they have limited access to jobs or education.

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

Sabir, a father of five children, said: “We are not allowed to work here. I feel helpless when I think of my children. What will I feed them?”

“I hope we are not forgotten. The global community must come forward to help,” Sabir said.

The WFP has emphasised that it requires $15 million in April to maintain full rations for the refugees. But fears are growing about the impact on food security during the holy month of Ramadan, which this year ends in the last days of March.

Bangladesh’s interim government, which took power in August 2024 following mass protests that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is hoping that Guterres' visit will help draw international attention to the crisis and mobilise aid for the refugees.

Guterres is scheduled to take part in a fasting break on Friday afternoon with refugees during Iftar, accompanied by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government.

“Without work or income, this will have catastrophic consequences,” 80-year-old refugee Abdur Salam said of the food ration cuts. “What kind of life is this? If you can’t give us enough food, please send us back to our homeland. We want to return to Myanmar with our rights.”