Hungry, stunted and underweight: How Rohingya refugee newborns and children have been left to suffer amid food aid cuts

Anowara fled to the Cox’s Bazar camp in Bangladesh from the north side of Myanmar’s Buthidaung Township six years ago, following a bruising 19-day journey navigating herself and her family across the border.

As she sits solemnly inside her camp shelter, her young son excitedly arrives home from school — an informal learning centre funded by NGOs where Rohingya children go for a couple of hours each day.

"The Rohingya now live in clustered and squalid camps, most of which are held together only by a flimsy tarpaulin roof and bamboo"

It’s a late afternoon like most others. Anowara will soon get to her feet, assemble some paltry ingredients, and begin preparing a simple dinner of rice, dried fish and dhal for her husband and three children.

“My daily routine at the camp involves attending to my family's needs,” she says. “Looking after my children and performing household chores. Preparing and eating meals take up a significant portion of the day, usually a few hours, and washing clothes and cleaning the shelter and dishes.”

The family, all Rohingya Muslims, fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state amid brutal military crackdowns in 2017 that triggered an exodus of over 700,000 people into crowded camps in southern Bangladesh.

There are reportedly around 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims living in the Southeast Asian country.

Many of them, like Anowara, were rendered stateless by the Burmese Government, subjugated to treatment branded “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN.

The Rohingya now live in clustered and squalid camps, most of which are held together only by a flimsy tarpaulin roof and bamboo.

To compound their misery, the government of Bangladesh currently restricts formal education, travel and employment, leaving the Rohingya waiting for, and then rationing, food handouts passed out by the World Food Programme (WFP).

In another crippling blow, the world's largest humanitarian organisation announced in June that it would be forced to cut the allocated food allowance again from $10 a month per person to just $8, due to a lack of funding.

"A reduced calorie intake puts people at risk of malnutrition and anaemia and weakens their immune systems, increasing the risk of future outbreaks of infectious diseases"

Ever-dwindling handouts mean that refugees are not receiving the nutrition they require — a predicament that could make Cox’s Bazar a breeding ground for a slew of diseases.

“A reduced calorie intake puts people at risk of malnutrition and anaemia and weakens their immune systems, increasing the risk of future outbreaks of infectious diseases such as measles and cholera,” Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported in March this year.

The cuts will have a particular effect on young children (0-59 months) and pregnant women, both highlighted as ‘Prioritised sector objectives’ in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) section on nutrition.

The WFP has since appealed for $125 million in urgent funding to avoid making further cuts. “If these cuts are made, they will be imposed on vulnerable people who are already food insecure,” UN experts said.

“Acute malnutrition levels remain high and chronic malnutrition is pervasive among the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh, with more than a third of children stunted and underweight.”

Anowara, who has three children aged 8, 6, and 1, says the cuts have made it “impossible” to adequately feed her family.

“It is disheartening and concerning for us, as it poses challenges to meet our basic nutritional needs,” she shrugs.

“My children now just have two meals daily, and before we were able to give them three. Balancing nutrition and sustenance is almost impossible for me most of the time because my husband doesn't have any kind of extra income, and we are totally dependent on WFP food assistance money.”

“12% of pregnant women at Kutupalong hospital and Balukhali clinic were diagnosed with acute malnutrition and 30% with anaemia"

Inadequate nutrition from a further compromised diet is particularly worrisome for expectant Rohingya mothers.

MSF concluded that “12 percent of pregnant women at Kutupalong hospital and Balukhali clinic were diagnosed with acute malnutrition and 30 percent with anaemia”.

They found that women who were malnourished or anaemic were more likely to experience “complications during childbirth”, while their newborn child was predicted to suffer from “poor health outcomes”.

At the Kutupalong refugee camp hospital, 30km from Cox’s Bazar, 28 percent of babies born in Kutupalong hospital and Balukhali clinic had a low birth weight, increasing their chance of becoming sick and malnourished.

Frighteningly, this data was published when refugees were granted a significantly higher $12 per person per month.

Sedali, a camp leader — or majhi — oversees the day-to-day operations in over 100 shelters within the Kutupalong camp.

With three children at home, the youngest just three months old, he is candid when discussing how fading support from NGOs will impact his family.

“It’s important for my children to have a lot of protein daily, but on many days, we don’t have access to that," he reveals.

He worries that they will not be able to “grow physically and mentally like other children do around the world”.

"I want to envisage a future for my children that is filled with safety, education, and opportunities for them to grow and thrive"

As the Rohingya minority continue to struggle, perpetually in fear of further displacement caused by indiscriminate cyclones and blazing fires, the world appears to be looking the other way.

Wendy McCance, NRC's country director in Bangladesh, accused the international community of “slowly turning their backs” amid the issue’s declining focus.

As Anowara begins to wash a carefully measured pan of rice, her words encapsulate the sentiment felt by a stateless community screaming out for deliverance.

“I want to envisage a future for my children that is filled with safety, education, and opportunities for them to grow and thrive,” she says.

“We just want to go back to our country as soon as possible with our rights and justice.”

Louis Regan is an independent journalist whose work focuses on migration, crime and foreign affairs