UN seeks nearly $1bn in aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

GENEVA: The United Nations announced on Monday it was seeking nearly $1 billion to provide life-saving aid this year for some 1.5 million Rohingya refugees and their hosts in Bangladesh.

The UN and more than 100 partners launched a two-year 2025-26 Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya crisis, amid what it called “dwindling financial resources and competing global crises”.

The appeal seeks $934.5 million in its first year to reach some 1.48 million people including Rohingya refugees and host communities. Around a million members of the persecuted and mostly Muslim minority live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, most of whom arrived after fleeing the 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.

“In its eighth year, the Rohingya humanitarian crisis remains largely out of the international spotlight, but needs remain urgent,” the UN said in a statement. Launching the appeal in Geneva, UN migration agency chief Amy Pope said drastic foreign aid cuts were putting lives on the line.

US President Donald Trump imposed a freeze on foreign aid in January pending a review, after which Washington announced the cancellation of 83 percent of programmes at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). “If we face cuts as organisations, the Rohingya don´t eat, or they don´t have protection, or they don´t have basic life-saving needs met,” Pope said.