UN to boost food ration for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

UN to boost food ration for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

World

The UN had cut food aid last year to the refugees by a third as it could not raise the fund required

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DHAKA (Reuters) – The United Nations will increase the food ration for each Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh by $2 a month, to $10 from Jan. 1, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday, as it thanked donors for coming to the rescue of a cash-strapped effort.

The United Nations had cut food aid last year to the refugees by a third, to $8 each every month, as it had raised less than half of the $876 million required to support them.

Nearly a million members of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in bamboo-and-plastic camps in Bangladesh's border district of Cox's Bazar, most of them having fled a military crackdown in 2017.

The WFP cut the refugees' food entitlement to $10 from $12 in March, and further in June, to stand at $8 each a month, in the wake of a severe funding crunch.

"The rapid deterioration of the food and nutrition situation in the camps is extremely worrying," Dom Scalpelli, the agency's director in Bangladesh, said in a statement.

"Through all this, the donor community stood with the Rohingya - it's all thanks to its generous contributions we can now have this increase and also add locally fortified rice to WFP's food assistance package."