Thousands of minors are exposed to insecurity and violence due to cuts in global aid funding
Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh), 27 years old (from Press Envoy for Europe, Guiomar Quintana)
In Cox’s Bazar, an area at the southern tip of Bangladesh bathed in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, thousands of Burmese children from the Rohingya ethnic group live in the world’s largest refugee settlement.
The region is considered one of the poorest areas in the country, and is home to a humanitarian nightmare. A truncated childhood and an uncertain future for more than a million stateless people who arrived in Bangladesh to escape persecution, violence and ethnic cleansing.
The numbers are shocking: 78% of the refugees living crampedly in 33 camps in Ojja and Teknaf, to which we must add the refugees on the island of Bhasan Char, are women and children.
This population, the vast majority of Muslims, now lives trapped in limbo, only a few kilometers from the border that marks a boundary between the present and the past, separating them from their original land, which is still at war.
The crisis, linked to the development of a seemingly insoluble armed conflict, is exacerbated by a decline in global funding for humanitarian aid, which is vital for dependent and vulnerable populations who refuse to abandon their roots.
“I arrived here in 2017 when I was a child. In Burma we couldn’t go to school. I want people to know what’s happening here, how we live. We want to get out of here and have the opportunity to study. Look how things are going,” laments H., 15, who asked to remain anonymous. He added that “the security situation has deteriorated again,” before warning of the presence of armed groups.
It was e. He is one of thousands of children who arrived in the camps after a major campaign eight years ago by the Burmese army – the army of Burma, a majority Buddhist country – that displaced about 740,000 people from the border state of Rakhine, where thousands of civilians remain vulnerable to attacks.
Unlike the nearly 40,000 Rohingya who arrived in the 1990s, those displaced by this brutal crackdown lack the safeguards and protections reserved for them under international law. After stripping them of refugee status, Bangladesh describes them as “forcibly displaced Burmese nationals,” a title that reduces them to nothingness.
This idea underlies internal politics, and has permeated not only the Bangladeshi collective consciousness, but also within the camps, where it causes divisions and shapes relationships, as well as between refugees and host communities.
The situation is complicated for Rohingya like Abdul Wahid and Sadia Aktar, a couple aged 25 and 22, who married a few years ago and arrived at Camp 4 when he was 17 and she was 14. Coming from Buthidaung town, very close to the border, they decided to cross to save their lives.
“We came in September 2017, there were constant attacks and we had to cross the jungle and flee in a boat with dozens of people,” says Waheed. “It took 20 days to arrive. We could not bring any personal belongings with us.”
Fearful of insecurity and the possibility of food shortages, he laments the little hope there is in the fields for his family and his children, both under the age of three: “I’m worried about them, I’m worried about their studies.” “There are also problems with medical treatment,” Waheed says in an interview with Europe Press. “There are some health centers, but if the situation is serious you have to leave the camps, and for this you need special permission from the authorities.”
The couple confirms that their desire is to return to Burma if “the situation changes,” which is a common story among refugees. Weighing the idea of an alternative future. “If there was security, I would want to return, but for that we need to obtain citizenship,” Aktar says. Aktar recalls the difficult reality of residents who have been unable to obtain citizenship since the 1980s, when General Ne Win’s dictatorship stopped issuing documents to the Rohingya.
“There are no chances”
Fierce fighting between the Burmese army and the rebel Arakan Army (also accused of committing atrocities against the Rohingya with its gains in Rakhine) has worsened the security situation in the Cox’s Bazar camps, especially since 2024.
Reduced aid, especially from important donors such as the United States and the European Union, leaves minors at greater risk. “Food comes first. We go out to look for work but we have no options. There are no opportunities because we are not considered refugees,” explains another resident in the series of plastic and bamboo huts that make up Camp 4.
“This affects a lot of people. There is a lot of uncertainty. I cannot say that the mission is in danger, but no one knows what will happen in the future,” explains Roquebol Allam, of the World Food Programme, who does not hide the fear that the reorganization of budgets will affect the health of refugees.
Food is the primary concern for the residents of these settlements, as malnutrition once again threatens thousands of children. Jida Bibi, a 35-year-old woman living in Camp 15, had to seek specific help to treat her youngest child, who is only a few months old.
She now seeks to raise awareness among other mothers about the importance of getting enough nutrition during pregnancy. “When I was pregnant, I didn’t get enough to eat,” she says during a visit to a UNICEF center specialized in treating malnutrition. “I came here in 2017 with my mother, but my siblings stayed in Burma.”
“I want other mothers to realize the importance of their children getting enough food and, if necessary, to go to places like this to treat their children,” she says. “The rest of my children are growing, but there is not enough food for everyone.”
Experts insist that these treatments are important to avoid long-term consequences. “If we don’t treat children with acute malnutrition, they are at risk of death,” says Owen Nkhoma, from UNICEF’s communications office in Cox’s Bazar. “But we need funding. We are moving forward despite the crisis, but 2026 will be worse.”
“Our biggest problem now is getting enough resources. If there is no money, thousands of children will be in danger. The situation of the Rohingya is getting worse because they are completely dependent on humanitarian aid,” explains Nkhoma, who points out that food shortages will cause diseases that “prevent them from growing well.” He adds: “This lack of funding is a new chapter in the Rohingya tragedy, and we must analyze how political actors can contribute.”
For organizations working on the ground, the countdown seems to have begun: as they discuss how to restructure the budget, thousands of children are becoming the visible face of the struggle against forgetfulness.