‘One of the worst food crises on the planet’ The starvation facing the Rohingya is at the most extreme end of the food crisis in Myanmar. A Reuters investigative report in December 2024 found that the regime suppressed information about a severe food crisis in Myanmar by detaining food security researchers and warning senior aid workers against releasing data.4 Due to these threats, the IPC – the global hunger watchdog, responsible for sounding the alarm about developing food crises so that humanitarian organisations can respond to prevent famine and mass starvation - never made public three detailed analyses that showed that Myanmar was ‘facing one of the worst food crises on the planet’.5 In private discussions with UN officials, junta representatives reportedly said they didn’t want Myanmar to be regarded as a failed State, or compared to war-torn places like Gaza.6 Indeed, it was the IPC that warned that famine was ‘imminent’ in northern Gaza in March 2024.7 According to Reuters, the IPC’s unreleased November 2024 report showed that a quarter of the population in Myanmar were experiencing acute food insecurity in September and October that year. 8 The IPC also removed data on Myanmar from its website. The ‘harrowing environment’ in Myanmar means that aid agencies are afraid to publish their findings on malnutrition and food insecurity.9 According to the Reuters investigative report, WFP is one of the agencies that hasn’t published a situational report for Myanmar since June 2023, nor an annual country report since 2022, in order to protect its local staff and partners from security threats.10 This level of intimidation by the regime and the resulting censorship of vitally important data about severe food shortages - hampers vital international fundraising efforts, because agencies like WFP can’t use their findings to publicly highlight the severity of the problem. The regime’s suppression of information about the severity of the food crisis in Myanmar is at least partly to blame for the country’s grave humanitarian crisis being one of the most severely underfunded in the world.11 The UN’s 2025 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Myanmar is currently less than 8 percent funded.12 According to the IPC’s unreleased November 2024 report viewed by Reuters, some of the most extreme food insecurity in Myanmar is among displaced people in Rakhine State. That same month, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took the unusual step of unilaterally declaring that ‘acute famine’ was imminent in Rakhine State. The IPC is the body tasked with making such pronouncements.13 More than 2 million people are at risk of starvation. UNDP described the situation as ‘dire’ for the Rohingya population in northern Rakhine State. 14 Crippling cuts to humanitarian aid Despite the huge needs, 2025 has so far been characterised by abrupt, crippling cuts to humanitarian aid funding with both immediate and long-lasting consequences for people across Myanmar and its borderlands. US President Trump’s January executive order to temporarily freeze all foreign aid and immediately suspend programmes cut off life-saving support overnight for hundreds of thousands of 4 Reuters, (16 December 2024) op. cit. 5 ibid. The full name of the IPC is Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. 6 ibid. 7 IPC, ‘IPC Famine Review Committee: Gaza Strip, March 2024’ (18 March 2024) available at <https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Famine_Committee_Review_Report_Gaza_Strip_Acute_ Food_Insecurity_Feb_July2024_Special_Brief.pdf> accessed 25 May 2025. 8 Reuters, (16 December 2024) op. cit. 9 ibid. 10 ibid. 11 Norwegian Refugee Council, ‘Alarming drop in global funding to people in war and crisis’ (2 July 2024) available at <https://www.nrc.no/news/2024/july/alarming-drop-in-global-funding-to-people-in-war-and-crisis> accessed 3 June 2025. 12 UNOCHA, ‘Myanmar: Humanitarian Update No. 46’ (23 May 2025) 1. 13 See Reuters, ‘An elaborate global system exists to prevent famine. It’s failing’ (4 December 2024) available at <https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/famine-response-overview/> accessed 25 May 2025. 14 UNDP, ‘Rakhine: A Famine in the Making’ (November 2024) 1, 8. 5