Donors losing interest in providing food assistance to Rohingyas

Desk Report:  Donors have lost interest in giving emergency aid to Rohingyas, David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, has told Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The WFP executive director came up with the information during a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her hotel suite in Rome on Monday evening (Local time).

Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque briefed reporters after the meeting.

In the last six months, the WFP has supplied food items worth $80 million to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Haque said quoting Beasley. “But now the donors are losing interest.”

More than 600,000 Rohingya refugees fled Myanmar's Rakhine state and took shelter in neighbouring Bangladesh after an army crackdown on their villages on Aug 25 last year.

Now Bangladesh, with aid from the United Nations and other international agencies, is sheltering some 900,000 Rohingyas.

As per the WFP assessment, he said, some USD 20-25 million is needed to feed the Rohingyas a month.

"Beasley informed the Prime Minister that the interest of the donor agencies to feed the Rohingyas is decreasing and the WFP is trying to keep alive this interest among the donor agencies under the UN system. But it's very difficult for them to keep it up," Shahidul Haque said.

The WFP executive director also expressed concern over the possibility of mudslide in the Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar during monsoon.

David Beasley apprised Sheikh Hasina about various campaigns the WFP is carrying out in the international arena over the Rohingya issue. "He said Beasley has briefed the US President twice on the issue," Shahidul Haque said.

Source: Agencies


risingbd/Feb 14, 2018/Mukul