UK, US pledge more aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

The UK and US have promised more aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as the number of new arrivals nears half a million.

The UK said it will provide £30 million in humanitarian assistance to Bangladesh and Myanmar, with the majority of the funds meant for use in Bangladesh, said Bangladesh Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya on Thursday.

The funds will come in addition to another £5.9 million, which was committed as aid for vulnerable refugees and their hosts before the latest influx from Myanmar, he said.

Maya was talking to reporters after meeting State Minister Mark Field of the UK Foreign Office and State Minister Alistair Burt of the Department for International Aid or UKAid.

The US, which has already pledged $32 million for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as well as those internally displaced in Myanmar, announced on Thursday that it would provide an additional $6 million to the UN World Food Programme, or WFP, through the US Agency for International Development or USAID.

“This funding is in addition to the $1 million provided to WFP earlier this year.  This assistance will support food distributions as well as the needed logistics to provide humanitarian assistance,” said a US embassy statement.

“This new funding brings US humanitarian assistance to Rohingya in the region to approximately $101 million in Fiscal Year 2017.”

International aid groups in Myanmar have been urging the government to allow free access to troubled Rakhine State, where an army offensive has sent 480,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.

Hundreds of thousands in Rakhine remain cut off from food, shelter and medical care.

The latest army campaign in the western state was launched in response to attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on security posts near the Bangladesh border on Aug 25.