Donors have lost interest in giving emergency aid to Rohingyas, David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, has told Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The WFP, however, will stand by Bangladesh to ensure food security in the country, he told Hasina during a meeting at a Rome hotel on Monday, Foreign Secretary Md Shahidul Haque has said.
Hasina reached Italy on Sunday to attend a conference of the International Fund of Agricultural Development or IFAD.
She will present the keynote paper at the inaugural session of the IFAD governing council conference on Tuesday.
In the last six months, the WFP has supplied food items worth $80 million to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Haque said quoting Beasley. “But now the donors are losing interest.”
The emergency aid must flow into the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar as the deadline of repatriation is as long as two years away.
UN lately faced difficulties to keep up the flow despite best possible efforts, Haque quoted David Beasley.
The rainy season which is nearing may worsen the situation, Beasley feared. On this, Hasina said her government plans to relocate the refugees to Bhasan Char for the time being.
Last September, Hasina placed a five-point proposal at the UN General Assembly session in New York to resolve the Rohingya crisis.
She asked Beasley to move the international community to push for the implementation of those proposals.
“Beasley described WFP’s Rohingya campaign to Hasina and said he had briefed the US president over the issue twice so far,” Haque told reporters.
WFP will implement 13 projects worth $300 million in Bangladesh between 2017 and 2020, according to Beasley.
Latest News