More than 1.4 million Rohingya refugees crammed into makeshift camps in southern Bangladesh may soon face what United Nations agencies warn could be an “unmitigated disaster.” After years of diminishing global attention and dwindling donor funds, the fragile humanitarian operation in Cox’s Bazar is nearing collapse.

Essential services—already pared to the bone—are being hollowed out further. Health care, education, and protection services have been severely curtailed. Now the World Food Programme fears it may run out of food funding entirely by November. That would leave each refugee with just $6 worth of food a month—an unsustainable pittance that risks acute malnutrition and social unrest.

Bangladesh, which has borne the brunt of the Rohingya exodus from neighbouring Myanmar since 2017, insists it can offer no more support. The government has reiterated its call for the international community to shoulder greater responsibility and to formulate a durable solution to one of the world’s most protracted refugee crises.

The two main government-run camps—Kutupalong in Ukhia, the largest refugee settlement on Earth, and Nayapara in Teknaf Upazila—are both in the Cox’s Bazar district, near the Myanmar border. Inhabitants, mostly Rohingya Muslims, remain stateless, dependent on external aid, and increasingly at risk of being forgotten by a fatigued world.