The Rohingya are on the brink of starvation

Rohingya refugees hold placards while attending a Ramadan Solidarity Iftar to have an Iftar meal with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Interim Government, at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh on March 14, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

During his four-day visit to Bangladesh in March, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited Cox’s Bazar, the site of one of the world’s most overlooked humanitarian crisis. Over a million Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar are teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Now, their fragile existence has made even more precarious by the Trump administration’s abrupt shutdown of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding.

USAID, historically the largest donor to humanitarian causes, spent about $40 billion a year globally. This has been slashed by the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire and senior adviser to Mr. Trump, Elon Musk. It is ironic that the U.S., which in 2022 declared the atrocities against the Rohingya a ‘genocide’, signalling a commitment to respecting and protecting human rights, is today pulling the plug on the very aid that has kept over a million displaced Rohingya alive in Bangladesh, the second-largest recipient of USAID in South Asia.

Catastrophic consequences

The decision to slash USAID funding has sent shockwaves through the global humanitarian community. It has severed a vital lifeline and exposed refugees around the world to starvation, disease, and insecurity. For the Rohingya, who have already endured genocide, exile, and decades of statelessness, the consequences of the decision have been catastrophic. The World Food Programme, which relies largely on U.S. funding, has been forced to cut already meagre rations from $12.50 per refugee per month to an unsustainable $6. Medical aid has dwindled, with at least five hospitals shutting down, and sanitation programmes collapsing. This is a manufactured crisis, an ideological experiment in dismantling global aid, carried out on the backs of the world’s most vulnerable people.

A weak moral compass

Mr. Musk’s opposition to foreign aid is not new. He has long dismissed USAID as a “financial black hole.” His gleeful participation in its dismantling reveals a deeper ideological inclination: a tech billionaire’s fantasy of replacing structured aid with privatised, profit-driven solutions. Mr. Musk, like many libertarians, believes that markets solve problems more efficiently than governments. But hunger, displacement, and genocide are not market failures; they are moral failures. The idea that philanthropic ventures or ad hoc charity can replace long-term institutional support is naïve at best and reckless at worst.

The collapse of USAID-funded gender-based violence services and medical facilities has left vulnerable refugees, including women and children, without protection, medical care, and essential support, exposing them to heightened risks of exploitation and harm. The dismantling of USAID is not just about numbers; it’s about values. America’s moral compass is questioned when the world’s richest men believe that spending on starving refugees is wasteful. The problem at hand also reflects a broader shift in the U.S.’s role in the world: a retreat from global responsibility and the abdication of moral leadership. The images from Cox’s Bazar — a mother unable to feed her child, a clinic forced to turn away a dying patient, a child scavenging for scraps in a camp that once received international support — are not just distant tragedies. They are reflections of a world where indifference has become a policy and where the whims of the rich dictate the fate of the poor.

This retreat from aid will not go unnoticed. Historically, the U.S.’s foreign assistance has not been purely altruistic; it has been a crucial instrument of soft power. Cutting aid to the Rohingya refugees doesn’t just hurt the refugees. It also weakens America’s standing in South Asia and beyond. China, which has steadily increased its influence in Bangladesh, will step into the vacuum left by the U.S., leveraging economic aid as a tool for geopolitical leverage. China has already been mediating between Bangladesh and Myanmar for possible repatriation of the Rohingya refugees back home.

A huge vacuum

The question is, if the U.S. withdraws funding, can other nations pitch in? Unfortunately not. The U.S. alone contributed nearly half of the World Food Programme’s budget in previous years, making its sudden withdrawal a near-impossible burden to redistribute among remaining donors. This has resulted in drastic food ration cuts, leaving the Rohingya refugees on the brink of starvation. The European Union has pledged €32.3 million, and Japan and Italy have made commitments, but none of them can fill the gap left by the U.S.

The collapse of USAID sets a dangerous precedent. If the world’s richest country can turn its back on one of the most vulnerable groups, what would stop other nations from following suit? The Rohingya crisis is not just a test for those suffering, it is a test for human civilisation. As Mr. Guterres said at Coz’ Bazar, “We cannot accept that the international community forgets about the Rohingya”. He added that he will “speak loudly” to world leaders that more support is urgently needed.

The question is, will the world watch idly as humanitarianism is eroded? Or will it reclaim the compassionate values that once defined the world’s oldest and leading democracy, the nation which poured billions of dollars to revive war-torn Europe through the Marshall Plan in 1948?

Syed Munir Khasru, senior director of the international think tank IPAG India