MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Thousands of miles from Washington, D.C., President Trump's decision to cut foreign aid has begun to affect many people whose lives depend on U.S. assistance. They include the Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh. Shamim Chowdhury visited their camps and filed this report from Cox's Bazar.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAMIM CHOWDHURY, BYLINE: Inside the world's largest refugee camp in a remote corner of Southern Bangladesh, a sense of uncertainty hangs in the air.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEBULISER HUMMING)
CHOWDHURY: We're at a U.S.-funded clinic operated by a humanitarian agency - the International Rescue Committee, or IRC. The humming of medical equipment reminds us that it's well-stocked. At least 26,000 refugees rely on the clinic's services, but these days, few have access to them.
It's the middle of the afternoon at this clinic, and there's not a single patient waiting to be seen.
Last year, the U.S. contributed $301 million, or 55%, of all foreign aid for the Rohingya. But since Trump suspended most of USAID's overseas funding, this clinic and four others are offering emergency services only. The suspension is temporary, pending a 3-month review, and it doesn't affect food funding. Last week, a U.S. federal judge ordered a temporary lifting of the aid freeze, but the clinic we visited told us it hasn't resumed full services.
We meet Noorjajan (ph), her only name. She's 58. Her tiny frame covered in sun-baked skin. She suffers from hypertension and can barely manage the 10-minute walk to the clinic. Before the funding freeze, doctors here would test her blood pressure daily and adjust her medication accordingly. But now she's told she can only be seen twice a week.
NOORJAJAN: (Through interpreter) Whenever we get sick, we come here and get medicine. If this place stops running, how will we get treatment?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
CHOWDHURY: The Rohingya, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority, lived for centuries in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, but they were effectively stripped of their citizenship in 1982. Since then, waves of them fled Myanmar, mainly to Bangladesh, with around 700,000 arriving in 2017 after suffering what the United Nation (ph) called a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar. Now, there are more than a million refugees cramped inside these camps. Their future remains bleak, and with foreign aid declining since the COVID pandemic, it's getting worse. As Shari Nijman, spokesperson for the United Nations Humanitarian Council for Refugees, explains.
SHARI NIJMAN: Most refugees are still almost completely reliant on humanitarian aid. So when we've seen that aid go down, support needs to be cut somewhere. And for us, it means that the services that we can provide these refugees will dip below the standard of humanitarian care that we want to give.
CHOWDHURY: But it's not just USAID cuts, the Trump administration has also made changes in other areas. Last month, it suspended a resettlement program for some Rohingya.
We meet one man whose hopes have been shattered.
(SOUNDBITE OF TABLE TENNIS BEING PLAYED)
CHOWDHURY: Mohammed Hassan lingers beside a table tennis game at a youth center where he once worked. He tries to focus, but his gaze keeps drifting. He came to Bangladesh in 1992 and applied to move to the U.S. in 2021. Last April, his refugee application was approved, but just five days after Trump's inauguration, the process was suspended. The international organization for migration had been facilitating the move. It told NPR that it was unable to provide a comment. Hassan is devastated.
MOHAMMED HASSAN: (Through interpreter) I have four children. I have a wife. My daughter asks when she will go to that far away place where she can go to school. My sorrow is such that not a week goes by when I don't have tears in my eyes.
CHOWDHURY: He wipes away his tears.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
CHOWDHURY: A few miles along the coast in the city of Cox's Bazar, we meet Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh's most senior official responsible for the Rohingya. His warning is stark.
MIZANUR RAHMAN: If the suspension goes as permanent declaration of, you know, withdrawing the support from this crisis response, it will be a disaster for this humanitarian crisis response.
CHOWDHURY: If that happens, he says, the people described by the U.N. as the most persecuted on Earth, stand to suffer even more.
For NPR News, I'm Shamim Chowdhury in the Rohingya refugee camps in Southern Bangladesh. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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