JAKARTA (Reuters) – The United Nations’ migration agency has reinstated humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees in Indonesia, its chief of mission in Jakarta told Reuters on Tuesday.
The reinstatement follows a Reuters report last week that the agency had been forced to reduce aid to over 900 Rohingya refugees due to massive funding cuts by its biggest donor, the United States.
Jeff Labovitz, chief of mission to Indonesia for the International Organization for Migration, confirmed the reinstatement of services to Rohingya sheltering in the city of Pekanbaru, on the western island of Sumatra.
“Our largest programme to provide humanitarian assistance has been reinstated. I can confirm there is no current planned reduction in services,” he said, providing no further details.
Separately, the agency said in an emailed statement that it “explored various options in response to potential funding challenges” and that necessary resources remain available that would allow it to continue its humanitarian efforts.
The U.S. embassy in Jakarta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There are about 2,800 Rohingya in Indonesia, the UN says.
Many ethnic Rohingya – who are mostly Muslim, originally from Myanmar and constitute the world’s largest stateless population – escape squalid camps and persecution in Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh each year, sailing aboard rickety boats to Thailand or Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia.
The plans to reduce aid followed the turmoil surrounding the global humanitarian sector, after U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January vowing to halt most U.S. foreign aid and dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
(Reporting by Stanley Widianto; Editing by Tom Hogue and Lincoln Feast.)
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