LONDON: The UK will provide £27 million ($36 million) to help Rohingya refugees who have fled war and food shortages in Myanmar.
The aid package will provide food, shelter, clean water and other life-saving services to half a million people living in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.
The funding was announced by the UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on Monday as a UN conference on the Muslim minority group took place in New York.
The US also announced $60 million in assistance for Rohingya and other Myanmar minority refugees “who have been victims of repression and violence,” and fled their country.
The UK aid will be delivered through various UN agencies including the World Food Program and UNICEF, along with other aid groups.
The money will also go toward reproductive health services for 175,000 women and girls, and to support survivors of sexual, physical and mental harm.
Cooper said that the funding would also help to support Bangladeshi host communities.
“The UK will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that those displaced by violence have the support, protection, dignity and opportunities they deserve,” she said.
The funding comes as the UN warns of a fresh hunger crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where fighting is raging between the military-led government and a group known as the Arakan Army.
More than a million Rohingya live in refugee camps in Bangladesh after vast numbers fled a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine in 2017.
The refugee crisis has been exacerbated by cuts in international aid, particularly by the US, which shut down the US Agency for International Development earlier this year.
The UK says that it has now provided more than £447 million since 2017 to help the Rohingya, and is continuing to work with Bangladesh to “promote stability and hope” for the Rohingya community.
