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SITUATION
• Attacks by armed actors on Burmese security posts in August 2017 and subsequent military operations in Burmese Rakhine state, home to the majority of Rohingya, triggered a major humanitarian crisis in neighboring Bangladesh. Violence in Burma forced nearly 706,000 people, most of them Rohingya refugees, to flee to south-eastern Bangladesh, joining more than 212,000 Rohingya living in the country by August 2017, the UN reports.
• The majority of Rohingya refugees live in 34 extremely overcrowded settlements in Cox’s Bazar district, where they still depend on food aid to meet their basic needs. The influx nearly tripled the population of Teknaf and Ukhiya upazilas in Cox’s Bazar district, which is currently home to the highest concentration of refugees in the world.
Vulnerable host communities in the area also face food insecurity and limited livelihoods.
• While extreme poverty levels are declining, nearly 32 percent of Bangladeshis still live below the national poverty line, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). About 25 percent of Bangladesh‘s population remains food insecure and 36 percent of children under five are stunted, a common measure of chronic malnutrition, WFP reports.
REPLY
• In fiscal 2019, USAID’s Food for Peace Office (FFP) provided more than $ 123 million in emergency food assistance to vulnerable communities in Cox’s Bazar district. FFP’s partners WFP and World Vision are providing emergency food assistance to Rohingya refugees and implementing self-reliance activities such as community kitchens and disaster risk reduction projects. With support from FFP, Action Against Hunger, WFP and World Vision are supporting cash income generating activities for affected host community members in Cox’s Bazar.
• FFP supports WFP and the United Nations Children’s Fund to implement nutrition activities for refugees in Cox’s Bazar, where children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women receive specialized foods to prevent and treat acute malnutrition.
• FFP partners with CARE International, Helen Keller International and World Vision to implement multi-year development programs aimed at promoting agriculture, disaster risk reduction, livelihoods, maternal and child health and development. empowerment of women in several regions of the country. In fiscal 2019, FFP provided more than $ 35 million to these non-governmental organizations to support these efforts.
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