DHAKA: As Bangladeshis celebrate the main rice-harvesting season in mid-November, they will share part of their crop with Rohingya refugees, authorities said on Tuesday, after cuts in international aid triggered a food crisis in the camps.
The UN’s Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya has been funded in slightly more than a third of the total financial requirements to sustain more than 1.3 million refugees who have fled Myanmar since the 2017 military crackdown and taken shelter in neighboring Bangladesh.
Since the onset of the crisis in August 2017, donors have been generously contributing to support the refugees in 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar on Bangladesh’s southeast coast, but in 2021 the aid started to drop, forcing agencies to compromise on education, healthcare and food rates.
Hosting the refugees for more than eight years, Bangladesh, which is already grappling with domestic challenges, has been appealing to the UN for more assistance as it was no longer able to allocate additional resources for the response.
The symbolic decision to share this year’s rice harvest with the refugees, comes as Nabanna, a centuries-old festival celebrating the first rice of the season, is observed in mid-November.
