“As the ripple effect of cuts in the humanitarian sector continue to reverberate around the world, more than one million Rohingya refugees remain confined to camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Last week the World Food Programme made an alarming announcement that they planned to cut food rations in half due to funding shortfalls. We’re talking here about more than a million stateless people, who have no right to work, no land and no other legal means of subsistence to feed themselves. We’re extremely concerned that a reduction in food rations would only further heighten the Rohingya refugee crisis and the sense of desperation already prevalent throughout the camps. We know what desperation and the need to survive in this closed camp creates in terms of violence, and the risk of exploitation, particularly for women and children. Many refugees tell us that they are afraid it will only get worse. 

Young children will be particularly at risk to the permanent effects of stunting on one hand, whereby their growth essentially stops owing to a lack of food, and on the other, also being more prone to illnesses while malnourished. Adults, many of whom are looking after children or elderly family members, will likely be forced to engage in negative coping mechanisms, from limiting their own diets to feed their families to pursuing exploitative income-generating activities.