One in three Rohingya refugees face crisis hunger as funding cuts deepen nine-year displacement

Mizzima

More than one in three Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camps, the world’s largest refugee settlement, are expected to face crisis-level hunger or worse between September and December, a five-percentage-point rise from last year driven by international funding cuts, nine years after they fled violence in Myanmar.

According to Save the Children, 35% of the roughly 1.2 million refugees living in the camps are classified under the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) as facing “crisis” hunger levels or worse, including 10% at the more severe “emergency” level, up from 30% a year earlier. The decline follows cuts by international donors that have forced aid agencies to shrink food rations over the past year, compounding overcrowding and limited access to clean water and livelihoods inside the camps.

The camps have swelled since 2017, when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled a violent military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Nine years on, an entire generation of Rohingya children has grown up knowing only life in displacement, with no resolution in sight for a safe return to Myanmar or resettlement elsewhere. Thousands of refugees marked the anniversary this week with protests in the camps demanding an end to the crisis.

For Ramida, a 30-year-old Rohingya refugee interviewed by Save the Children, the toll has been direct. She said financial hardship during her pregnancy meant “I couldn’t eat as I wanted to and I couldn’t get what I needed.” Her son Rakib, now three, was born underweight and was later treated for severe acute malnutrition at Save the Children’s Maternal and Child Health Hospital in the camp. Malnutrition in mothers raises the risk of low birth weight and lifelong health complications in children, the organisation said.

Conditions in the camps have deteriorated further this year: landslides triggered by monsoon rains in July killed ten children, including students and a teacher, while a record number of about 900 Rohingya, including children, were reported missing or dead at sea in 2025 after attempting dangerous boat journeys in search of safety elsewhere.

Golam Mostofa, who heads Save the Children’s Cox’s Bazar office, said the hunger crisis was not simply a matter of food scarcity but the consequence of a humanitarian emergency left unresolved for nearly a decade, leaving children without adequate protection, education or a genuine path forward.

Save the Children is calling on the international community to close the humanitarian funding gap and for governments to protect refugee rights and accelerate durable solutions for Rohingya families beyond indefinite displacement.