A foreign aid shortfall, soaring demand and inflation are forcing charities in Thailand to drastically cut food allowances to tens of thousands of refugees who fled neighboring Myanmar — a move that could mean less food and fewer meals.

The cuts will hit more than 80% of the 100,000-plus refugees living across nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border, some since the 1980s, according to The Border Consortium, a league of charities that supply the camps with most of their food support.

Mostly barred from working outside the camps by the Thai government, and with few opportunities to earn a living inside, most of the refugees rely on that support to avoid going hungry.

How the funding gap drives cuts

The cutbacks stem, in part, from a decision last year by the US State Department, which typically covers more than half the consortium's annual budget, said Leon de Riedmatten, the consortium's executive director.

"Our request last year in August was for $20 million [€17.5 million], but we got only $15 [million]" to carry them through the 12 months to July 2025, de Riedmatten told DW.

He said inflation, exchange rate fluctuations and rising refugee numbers also played a part.

According to the consortium's own count, the nine camps have taken in nearly 30,000 new refugees since Myanmar's military toppled the country's democratically elected government in 2021 and set off a deadly civil war. 

"There have been several reasons which have made our expenses higher, and now … what we will have in hand will be insufficient to continue at the same scale to provide food assistance to the camps' residents," de Riedmatten said.

Whether the cutbacks persist past July will depend in large part on what the consortium's donors decide to dole out for the 12 months after that. The US State Department declined to comment.

Widening food insecurity

Once enrolled in the food program, refugees receive digital cards — topped up each month at varying levels based on periodic assessments of their particular needs — that they can use at shops throughout the camps.

The consortium said households that rely on those cards to buy all or most of the food they need will continue to be topped up at the same levels as before.

That puts most of the burden of the cutbacks on the 83% of refugees in so-called standard households, which can meet more of their needs on their own, often with the help of a small garden, a modest job inside the camp, or the charity of a relative abroad. For some of them, the cuts will be steep.

An adult in a standard household who had been getting 275 baht (about $8.27/€7.20) per month, for example, will now get only 57 baht — roughly one fifth of their previous allowance.

The refugees have never seen cuts this deep, said Saw Bweh Say, secretary and spokesman for the Karen Refugee Committee, which helps to oversee day-to-day operations in the camps, and a former refugee himself.

"This is a very big reduction. We never had the experience [like this] before. This is the first time in our life within 50 years in the refugee camps, so we are worried," he said. "Right now we are still thinking about what to do."

One refugee in the largest of the nine camps, Mae Le, who spoke with DW on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Thai authorities, said it will simply mean having to eat less.

The 63-year-old, who fled Myanmar amid a bout of sectarian violence in 2006, said his extended family of eight received a combined 2,284 baht a month in food allowances before the cutbacks.

Combined with the modest wages from some of the few jobs in the camps, it was just enough for three meals on most days.

He said the cutbacks slash their combined allowance to just 586 baht a month and will likely force the family to eat less, meat in particular, maybe even to skip some meals.

"Maybe we [will] have two meals a day, maybe we might have one meal a day, or maybe we have to reduce our food," he said, adding that whatever they are given, they will have to suffer.

Malnutrition on the rise

At the same time as the cutbacks take effect, the consortium's latest nutrition survey of children in the camps, published last month, shows malnutrition on the rise.

Acute malnutrition has ticked up to 3.4% since 2019, after many years of holding steady at around 2%, according to the survey.

Chronic malnutrition, which had been falling steadily until 2022, dropped to 21.5%, before rising to 25.7% last year.

Tim Moore, the consortium's Thailand program director, said acute malnutrition levels are still below what the World Health Organization (WHO) considers cause for concern.

He ascribes the rise in chronic malnutrition, meanwhile, which takes longer to develop, to the influx of new refugees from Myanmar, where the civil war has plunged millions of people into poverty.

Moore said the camps still have several safeguards in place, however, to spot and treat malnutrition even with the cutbacks in food allowances taking effect.

"Overall, food security in the camps has remained high. But no system is failsafe, and we remain especially vigilant for signs of acute malnutrition," he said.

Refugee work ban

De Riedmatten said the consortium is also looking for ways to make up for the cutbacks as soon as possible.

With many donor countries focused more on meeting their own needs than on foreign aid, he said their best bet is to convince the Thai government to let the refugees work outside of the camps so they can meet more of their needs on their own.

Refugee advocates have been pushing the idea for years, but to no avail. After an opposition lawmaker raised the idea again in January, Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai dismissed it, claiming it would burden Thai citizens.

Still, de Riedmatten said he believes the Ministry of Interior, which would have to put any work plan the government approves for the refugees into practice, may be starting to come around.

A spokeswoman for the ministry told DW that any plan would first need to be vetted and approved by a government committee headed by the powerful National Security Council. The council did not reply to a request for comment.

De Riedmatten is reticent about what hardships the refugees may face if the government continues to deny them the right to find work outside the camps and the cutbacks in their food allowances take hold.

"This is a question for which there is no answer, because then the people themselves will have to think about what they can do," he said. "But we are not yet there, so I really hope that we will manage to find a way to largely solve the problem before we reach this kind of impossible situation."

Edited by: Keith Walker