Dhaka had received an official notice from the World Food Programme (WFP) reducing the daily food allowance of around 10,00,000 Rohingya refugees from $12 to around $6 monthly with effect from April 1, 2025.

The news could not have come at a worse time. Naturally the present makeshift administration currently headed by Dr Mohammad Yunus already grappling with a series of challenges including mounting social violence, and an economic crisis, has launched a major effort to involve the United Nations and major Western and Islamic countries to secure as much aid as possible.

Fortunately UN General Secretary Mr. Antonio Gutteres had come for a 4-day visit to Bangladesh some days ago. Apart from holding talks at the highest level with Dr Yunus and other officials, on the continuing deadlock over the proposed return of Rohingyas to Myanmar, he also visited a few camps where they had been settled by the administration, to see things for himself.

Dhaka-based media reports stated that he fully appreciated Bangladesh's concern about the Rohingya issue and promised to do his best to secure international assistance to the tune of at least $1 billion in 2025.

Most observers agree that Bangladesh deserved much more international support and help for putting with nearly a million Muslim Rohingyas for so many years. Indeed there is no agreement even about the actual number of these refugees presently in Bangladesh.

The Rohingyas were systematically driven out by successive Buddhist-dominated governments from their earlier homeland, the Rakhine province in Myanmar. From the eighties they were regarded as a non Burmese ethnicity, while the army had staged a coup, and took over the administration. As non citizens, they lost practically every right.

While reports suggest Muslim Rohingyas were brought over by the British rulers to erstwhile Burma from other region as labourers, some historians claim that they had been living in the Rakhine province much earlier.

Since the eighties, when the anti Rohingya drive began, the majority Buddhist Burmese community had complained that their language, religion and food habits were different from native Burmans and other tribes in the region. Therefore, they had no right to stay in Burma.

To drive the message home, repeated mass attacks on defenceless Rohingya settlement were carried out by armed mobs several times, with local police or army offering no assistance!

During the last three decades small batches of Rohingyas had escaped, after taking shelter mostly in Bangladesh, in Chittagong and other places. Over the years as Bangladeshi authorities did not want drive out Muslim Rohingyas, the community was settled in large numbers near the Cox’s Bazar-Chittagong belt.

As news of their massacre and escape from Myanmar received international attention, Bangladesh eventually allowed them to settle on a nearby island Bhashanchar, where rehab facilities were made available. Bangladesh also received regular financial help from the UN and other agencies to help it look after the minimum needs of the displaced community.

Estimates about the present number of Rohingyas living in Bangladesh range from around 930,000 to over 1.2 million. Over the years, many Rohingyas have illegally migrated in boatloads to other Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia while some have illegally come over to India using other routes.

Over the years, Rohingyas have tried to escape from Bangladeshi special camps mainly in search of a better life, alleging that apart from enjoying food security, there is hardly any other facility like education or job prospects. .

Over the years, the UN, the US and EU countries have repeatedly pressed Burmese authorities, regardless of the nature of successive government in Myanmar, to take back the Rohingyas, the original inhabitants of the resource-rich Rakhine province.

Apart from taking back a few thousands of people over the last 15 years, Myanmar has showed no interest in resettling them. The US and EU countries have applied some economic sanctions, but to little effect. At present, there is little hope of the Rohingyas' return, now that Myanmar itself is being torn apart by a bloody civil war!

Naturally Bangladesh now fears of being left alone to handle the burden of Rohingyas, in view of its bitter experience. It has been made to suffer for years for housing so many Rohingyas despite its own financial problems, for no faults of its own! Even countries like China, India and Russia have been unable to press Myanmar too, because of (a) joint oil/gas production projects or (b) arms export and other trades.

As things stand, Bangladesh hopes to make sure international assistance from the UN and other agencies continue as before. The Islamic countries, as usual will continue to support Bangladesh.

But until more pressure is brought to bear on Naypitaw, the kind of pressure even the Burmese cannot ignore, Bangladesh cannot really hope for substantial relief from the problem of Rohingyas.

The reduction in the monthly food allowance by 50% from April means the individual Rohingya living in the camps will be entitled only to food costing 8 taka daily — this at a time when one egg often sells for 12 taka in Bangladesh markets! Interestingly, international agencies concede in their official correspondence on the matter that such a drastic reduction could well lead to prolonged, even violent unrest in Bangladesh, endangering its law and order situation. (IPA Service)