In response to the floods in Bangladesh earlier this month, the European Union has released €300,000 to assist the displaced population in the southeast of the country. The aid will focus on the Bandarban region, as one of the hardest-hit districts.
The funding will be used to provide emergency cash assistance to allow beneficiaries to immediately cope with their urgent needs, mainly in terms of food and shelter. The funding will be managed by the UN’s World Food Program (WFP), which will coordinate operations in the area with the Bangladesh Red Cross in order to ensure the largest possible coverage.
Since 5 August, heavy rainfall has caused flash floods and landslides in the southeast of Bangladesh, with a particularly harsh impact on Bandarban, where around 80% of the municipal area was flooded. The floods have severely impacted food security, causing widespread damage to food stocks and harvests, as well as the death of livestock and loss of livestock’s feed. Individual shelters in the most affected areas have also experienced extensive damage. In Barbadan alone, it is estimated that 15,600 homes have suffered severe damage.
This new funding comes in addition to the over €30 million provided by the EU this year in humanitarian aid to Bangladesh, notably in response to the Rohingya refugee crisis, but also to reduce the impact of natural hazards. In May, after the devastating Cyclone Mocha hit the coastline of Bangladesh, the EU responded through the IFRC Pilot Programmatic Partnership with €305,000 for immediate assistance to affected people, both in the refugee camps and among the host population.
For both Cyclone Mocha and the recent floods, the EU’s department for civil protection and humanitarian aid operations (DG ECHO) activated an Anticipatory Action project through WFP, allowing 5,300 households in Teknaf district to have access to multi-purpose cash transfer ahead of the two disasters.