Acute fund shortage poses serious threat to providing humanitarian response to over one million Rohingya refugees, as at present only around 15 per cent fund is available against the required US$ 951 million for the process.
The international agencies, engaged in providing humanitarian services to the Rohingyas, expressed their frustration over the funding situation.
Initially, from December 2017 to February this year, the availability of fund was sufficient, but recently it has been very meagre, said World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director Christian Reader.
"WFP needs $ 243 million for providing foods to the Rohingyas for the next 10 months, but so far we have only $ 45 million in hand," she said.
If things go like this, it will be threatening for the lives of thousands of refugees, she added.
International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has appealed for $ 182 million to provide aid in Cox's Bazar up to December 2018, is currently facing a funding shortfall of almost $ 151 million.
The overall joint response plan of all the agencies, which called for $ 951 million, has secured just nine per of that amount until April 27, said a recent report of IOM, the UN migration agency.
However, recently it rose to around 15 per cent, foreign ministry officials said.
According to IOM, the work by the aid agencies in Bangladesh's Rohingya refugee camps - to create life-saving access routes and prepare people for floods, landslides and other disasters ahead of the upcoming monsoon and cyclone season - is under imminent threat unless urgent funding is secured by the next couple of weeks.
Without new funding, the lives of thousands of people, who flooded into the camps in southern Bangladesh to flee violence in Myanmar triggered in last August, will be put at risk, the agency said.
Almost a million Rohingya refugees are currently living under tarpaulins in Cox's Bazar district, on steep, sandy slopes denuded of vegetation.
At least 120,000 have been identified as being at high risk from floods and landslides triggered by heavy rain. Of these 25,000 have been have been identified as at the highest risk from landslides. But without aid, many will have to remain in their current hazardous locations.
Hundreds of thousands of others will also be at risk, if roads become impassable, and vital aid supplies and medical services cannot get through.
However, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told the FE that they are optimistic of overcoming the situation.
"It is true that the flow of funding is not satisfactory at present, as it was in the first couple of weeks. The joint response group made an appeal for over $ 900 million, and so far they have received around 15 per cent. But we hope this problem will be resolved. UN has its contingency mechanism."
"Besides, the international agencies concerned are calling for assistance, which I hope will get some response. Besides, the Bangladesh government has its own commitment."
"Our prime minister is very sincere and committed to support the Rohingyas. So from the government side all possible assistances will be provided," he added.
Highlighting the present scenario, John McCue, IOM's senior operations coordinator in Cox's Bazar, said, "Aid staff on the ground are working flat out to improve shelters, stabilise ground, secure key access roads, and have emergency response services readied to save lives, if the worst happens."
"But the harsh truth is that we cannot keep doing that if we do not have the funds. We cannot wait for funding to come in after the emergency is over and possibly preventable tragedies have occurred. We need to be able to act now, if lives are to be saved."
"With so many critical sectors already on the brink of being suspended because of lack of funds, we have no time to lose."
"If significant funding is not secured in the next few weeks to keep operations running, there is a high likelihood that many children, women and men may die, when they could have otherwise been saved," warned McCue.
The scale of the response in Cox's Bazar, and the prospect of an emergency within an emergency when the monsoon and cyclone seasons hit, means that the aid agencies are working together in close coordination to avert the threat of a large-scale loss of life, said IOM.
IOM, WFP and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are working alongside other agencies and the government of Bangladesh on a range of measures to prepare for the severe weather challenges ahead.
Shared projects include machinery hubs to keep vital access ways open, disaster response mechanisms, and preparing safer land for the relocation of those most at threat from landslides.
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