EU urged to raise food support for Rohingya in Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AA): The Rohingya refugees living in temporary shelters in southeast Cox’s Bazar coast of Bangladesh have requested the visiting EU delegation to increase their ration as the refugees have been passing through a food crisis.
A 5-member pre-election observation delegation of the EU has been on a 16-day visit to Bangladesh. The team, led by EU’s Special Representative for Human Rights Eamon Gilmore, has visited the refugee camps and has met the Muslim Rohingya refugees.
Rohingya refugees have been badly affected by a recent UN cut in food rations, Bangladeshi refugee officials said, adding that they too urged the EU visiting team to raise the food support. In 2017, the UN called the Rohingya Muslim minority of Myanmar as the “most persecuted community in the world.”
However, on June 1, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) announced a further cut in food rations for Rohingya refugees to $8 per month, or 27 cents per day, from $10 due to a funding shortfall. In March, rations were cut from $12 to $10 due to a lack of funding support.
The Rohingya refugees also shared with the visiting delegates the ordeal they had gone through during a military crackdown in August 2017 by the Myanmar military.
The refugees told the team that though efforts were being made to repatriate them under a pilot project with the mediation of China, a safe environment for Rohingya to return to their home in the Rakhine state in Myanmar has not yet been created.
Currently, Myanmar is being ruled by a hardline military junta which has never been interested in repatriating the Rohingya Muslims.
The Rohingya want full-fledged citizenship rights before any repatriation to Myanmar, saying they are eager to return, but in a dignified manner.
Speaking to the media, Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Mizanur Rahman said, “we will urge the EU team to increase the food support for the Rohingya.”
“We will further request them to pressure Myanmar so that they can ensure a suitable environment in the Rakhine state and start a dignified and voluntary repatriation of Rohingya,” he added.
Meanwhile, the EU announced a fresh contribution of €3.35 million ($3.7 million) through its humanitarian aid department to support UNHCR’s continued protection services and assistance delivery for Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh, according to a UNHCR Dhaka statement.
Nearly 1.2 million Muslim Rohingya refugees are living in Bangladesh, the majority of whom fled a brutally genocidal military crackdown in Rakhine in August 2017. Most of them are housed in overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar district, but around 30,000 have been relocated to the island of Bhasan Char since late 2020.
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