NEW YORK: The United States will contribute nearly $32 million in humanitarian aid to help Rohingya Mus­lim refugees, the State Dep­art­ment said Wednesday, in the Trump administration’s first major response to the mass exodus from Myanmar.

The new money for food, medical care, water, sanitation and shelter comes as the US joins a growing chorus of international condemnation over the minority group’s plight.

The Trump administration announ­ced the new funds as world leaders were converging in New York for annual United Nations Gen­eral Assembly meetings. Vice President Mike Pence lamented the “terrible savagery” of Myanmar’s security forces as he addressed a UN Security Council session on Wednesday focused on peacekeeping. “We are witnessing a historic exodus,” Pence said.

“While we welcome Aung San Suu Kyi’s comments that returning refugees have nothing to fear, the United States of America renews our call on Burma’s security forces to end their violence immediately, and support diplomatic efforts for a long-term solution,” Pence said.

Simon Henshaw, the top US diplomat for refugee and migration issues, said there was much more Myanmar’s government must do to secure the area and protect the people.

“We’re concerned about the reports of attacks, extrajudicial murders, rapes, bur­­­­n­ing of villages,” Henshaw said in an interview on the sidelines of the UN gathering.

The State Department will provide the money from an existing account for refugee and migration issues, officials said, and will coordinate the aid thro­u­­gh the International Committee of the Red Cross and affiliated local groups.

Though Suu Kyi has said the “great majority” of Muslims in the conflict zone stayed put and less than half of villages were emptied, the US has voiced scepticism about that assertion.

“We don’t have the access to evaluate that,” Henshaw said. “But 420,000 people moving into Bangladesh suggests the vast majority of Rohingya are affected.”

The US said the new money makes up roughly one-fourth of what global aid groups say they need to address the humanitarian crisis, with the expectation that the rest of the world will make up the remaining three-quarters. Over time, the overall cost will probably run into many hundreds of millions, said Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International.

“I’ve been doing this work for 30 years,” Schwartz said by phone as he flew back from Bangladesh. “This is as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in terms of the human misery that the Burmese military has created.”

Schwartz said that in addition to food, water and shelter, the refugees will need clothing, security for camps being erected on the Myanmar-Ban­g­ladesh border, education for hundreds of thousands of child refugees, and psychosocial support for those who have experienced trauma during the exodus.

Bangladesh already struggles with overpopulation and is poorly equipped to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees. Even so, the international community has roundly praised the country for its generosity and willingness to help the Rohingya.

The $32 million brings the total the US has given in humanitarian aid for Myanmar refugees and related issues this budget year to roughly $95 million.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2017