USAID announces additional $75m assistance for Rohingyas
27 January 2023
Staff Reporter :
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced an additional $75 million in humanitarian assistance to help Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar and members of the Bangladeshi host community.
The USAID announced the assistance so that they could meet the ongoing needs that had been exacerbated by the increasing costs of food and fuel, said a press release issued from Dhaka office.
According to the release, with this new funding, USAID will work with the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) to provide critically needed food and nutrition assistance, infrastructure maintenance, disaster risk reduction, and logistics support.
This new funding will provide critical and life-saving assistance to nearly 600,000 people.
The food and nutrition assistance includes electronic vouchers for staple and fresh foods at designated distribution sites as well as support to feeding programmes for malnourished children six months to five years of age, and pregnant and lactating women, the release read.
These programmes will target populations residing in 33 refugee camps and 130 sites in the local Bangladeshi community. In addition, through disaster risk reduction programming, WFP will work with the community to maintain and improve public infrastructure within the camps.
According to the release, Bangladesh hosts nearly one million refugees, of whom majority are ethnic Rohingyas. More than 774,000 refugees were forced to flee their home in Burma's Rakhine State six years ago after members of Burma's military mounted a campaign of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other horrific atrocities and abuses against Rohingya
The majority of these refugees are living in one of the world's largest refugee camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar District.
The United States is committed to helping Rohingyas, and USAID will continue to support them in their time of need, as well as the generous communities in Bangladesh who host them, it added.
