A $12 food voucher became $7. The agency says it is not a ration cut.

On 1 April 2026, the World Food Programme changed how it feeds 1.2 million people.

Until that day, a Rohingya refugee in the camps around Cox's Bazar received a voucher worth $12 per person per month. From that day, the amount depended on an assessment of how badly off the household was: between $7 and $12.

WFP described the change as a move to a tiered system based on need, not a ration cut.

Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner told the Associated Press that a ration cut is precisely what it means for the Rohingya.

What the tiers look like

• Lowest tier7$
• Highest tier (extremely food insecure)12$

Seven dollars a month is about 23 cents a day. It is intended to be a household's entire food budget, in a camp where refugees are not permitted to work.

The reason is not local

The Associated Press reported that WFP lost about a third of its funding after foreign aid cuts by the United States and other donors. Its Rohingya operation was around 50 per cent funded in 2025, and 19 per cent funded at the time of the April reporting.

That figure is the whole story. An agency at 19 per cent of its requirement is not choosing between good options. It is choosing which people to give less to.

1.2m

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, including some 150,000 who arrived since early 2024

$710.5m

requested in the 2026 appeal — 26 per cent below the 2025 request

~900

Rohingya dead or missing at sea in 2025, the deadliest year on record for these crossings

Nine years, and the exits are closing

The camps at Cox's Bazar are approaching their ninth year. About 750,000 people crossed from Myanmar's Rakhine State in the influx that began in August 2017, joining Rohingya who had fled earlier.

Three routes out have narrowed at once.

Return. Repatriation prospects have receded as conflict inside Myanmar continues. There is no safe place to send people back to, and no authority to send them back to.

Work. Refugees have limited legal opportunity to earn inside Bangladesh, which is why a voucher is a household's food supply rather than a supplement to it.

Sea. In 2025, close to 900 Rohingya died or went missing attempting crossings in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal — the deadliest year on record for that route.

When rations fall, that third route gets busier. This is not speculation; it is the pattern humanitarian agencies have documented after previous cuts.

Who is asked to absorb the cut

Bangladesh has hosted this population for nearly a decade, largely without the international burden-sharing that was promised at the start. UNHCR's spokesperson credited that hosting directly when warning about the 2026 shortfall.

The 2026 appeal asks for $710.5 million for refugees and Bangladeshi host communities — 26 per cent less than the 2025 ask. As with the global appeal, the smaller number does not describe smaller need. It describes lowered expectations of donors.

The people being asked to absorb the difference are a refugee household deciding what to stop buying, and a Bangladeshi district that has already carried nine years of this.