The young children’s eyes give it away: vacant; encased in dark cavities that should otherwise be fleshy and plump. There are other signs too — heads slightly too large for their bodies, arms and legs reduced to spindles. These are the unmistakable signs of chronic malnutrition.

In the sprawling, makeshift settlements of Cox’s Bazar, southern Bangladesh — home to one of the world’s largest refugee populations — these signs are heartbreakingly common. More than 1 million Rohingya refugees live in 33 camps across Ukhiya and Teknaf. Of those, around 320,000 children are suffering from malnutrition. And that number grows by 22,000 every year, as new babies are born into a world that cannot feed them.

These refugees fled genocide and persecution in Myanmar, but now they face a different kind of violence — the slow, daily deprivation of food, healthcare, and dignity.

As rations shrink, crisis deepens

Until recently, the World Food Programme (WFP) provided refugees with $12.50 per person per month — just 41 cents a day. That amount was barely enough to keep families from starving. In early March, the WFP warned that without urgent assistance, those rations would be reduced to $6 a month—just 19 cents a day. However, it recently revised the amount to $12 per month, or 39 cents a day, but that is still dangerously low.

To put that amount into perspective, in Bangladesh, one kilogram of rice costs around 49 cents, a kilogram of lentils costs 32 cents, and a chicken costs $2.46. It’s easy to see, therefore, how little a family of four, receiving a total of just $1.56 per day, can afford to eat.

This is not an economic adjustment — it’s a humanitarian collapse.

Doctors say that children between the ages of one and three need at least 1,400 calories a day. Those aged between nine and thirteen need 1,600, women require up to 2,400 calories, and men need at least 2,500 calories, depending on their height and build.

Current rations leave the Rohingya far below those thresholds. The consequences are not just immediate — they’re generational. Malnourished children risk stunted growth, weakened immune systems, and permanent developmental delays.

This isn’t a sudden disaster. It’s a slow-motion tragedy, years in the making. The Rohingya have lived in limbo in Bangladesh since the mass exodus in 2017, when over 750,000 fled what the United Nations described as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" by the Myanmar military.  It also followed decades of Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, starting in the early 1990s, due to repeated persecution.

But global attention — and with it, donor funding — has steadily declined.

When I spoke with representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they explained how humanitarian support has been decreasing for nearly a decade. The situation in Bangladesh is now considered a “protracted humanitarian crisis,” no longer commanding the global urgency it once did. Aid workers stressed how media attention and funding are closely linked — when the headlines disappear, so does the money.

The WFP says the food funding gap is a result of a broad shortfall in donations, rather than a decision by US President Donald Trump to cut foreign aid globally.

But the recent reduction in USAID funding by $8.8m to the camps has affected not just food support, but also essential services like reproductive health, gender-based violence protection, and maternal care.

While visiting the Kutupalong and Balukhali camps in March, I witnessed the real-world consequences of these cuts. Five clinics run by the International Rescue Committee had been forced to limit services to emergencies only. Staff explained that the reduction in funding meant closing outreach programs that once supported women and children most at risk.

A future in peril

The broader implications of this funding collapse are deeply concerning. Experts I spoke with, including refugee camp coordinators and NGO workers, warned that desperation is beginning to spread. They described how hunger and poverty could push some members of the community to join gangs or turn to illicit activities, simply as a means of survival. Others pointed to rising domestic violence and increasing reports of human trafficking within the camps.

With over a million stateless people crammed into dense quarters — denied the right to work, travel, or integrate into Bangladeshi society — the pressure is explosive. And as more Rohingya continue to arrive, fleeing the fresh turmoil in Myanmar, that pressure only builds.

The European Commission recently pledged $79.4 million in aid to help the Rohingya and others displaced by the conflict in Myanmar. But that figure is far from what’s needed. According to the WFP, at least $96 million is urgently needed just to restore full food rations for the rest of the year.

The scale of need is enormous. The sense of abandonment, even greater.

What’s happening in Cox’s Bazar is not just a humanitarian emergency — it is a moral failure. The Rohingya have already endured unimaginable horrors, including murder, torture, rape, the burning of their homes, and statelessness. And now, we are watching them starve, not because of war, but because of global apathy.

When the world first witnessed their suffering, there was an outpouring of sympathy and support. But sympathy has an expiration date in the international news cycle. Funding is conditional on attention. And attention, as we've seen, is fleeting.

The Rohingya remain trapped — in camps, in history, in limbo. They are still here, still suffering. Let the world not look away.