Myanmar's food crisis and growing hunger in Rakhine state

A Rohingya refugee child sells vegetables on the street, along a kitchen market inside a refugee camp, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Aug 27, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Hunger is rising in Myanmar, the impoverished Southeast Asian country that has been ravaged by conflict since a 2021 military coup ousted an elected civilian government.

Some 3.6 million people are displaced across the war-torn nation, according to the United Nations, and a lack of funding has left millions of vulnerable people without life-saving humanitarian support.

Myanmar is one of the world's most underfunded aid operations, with only 12 percent of required funds received, the UN says.

WHAT IS THE HUNGER SITUATION NATIONWIDE?

More than 16 million people across Myanmar, about a third of the population, are acutely food insecure, meaning that their lack of food threatens lives and livelihoods, according to the World Food Programme.

They are the fifth-largest group needing aid anywhere in the world, making Myanmar "a hunger hotspot of very high concern," the agency said.

More than 540,000 children across the country are expected to suffer this year from acute malnutrition - life-threatening wasting that can have severe and lifelong effects – a 26 percent increase from last year, WFP said.

One in three children under the age of five is already suffering from stunted growth, according to WFP.

HOW BAD IS IT IN RAKHINE?

The western coastal state of Rakhine, where conflict is raging, has been hit particularly hard by the food crisis, with restrictions on aid delivery and the movement of people.

In central Rakhine, the WFP estimates that 57 percent of families cannot afford basic food, up from 33 percent in December 2024, while the situation in the hard-to-reach north is probably even worse, it says.

Food prices are as much as four times higher than before the conflict, while many markets are empty and people are unable to travel freely or find jobs to support themselves, according to a WFP official.

The crisis is driving more Rohingya families from Rakhine into Bangladesh, where more than 1 million members of the Muslim minority group already live in crowded refugee camps after a brutal Myanmar military crackdown in 2017 triggered a mass exodus.

Many newly arrived Rohingya refugees are suffering from acute malnutrition, especially children and pregnant and lactating women, the International Rescue Committee says.

Hospital admissions for severe wasting increased by 12 percent between January and June this year compared to the same period in 2024, and UNICEF treated 1,028 severely wasted children among new arrivals between October 2024 and June 2025, it said.