US announces $26m in new aid for Rohingyas

The United States announced on Tuesday $26 million in new humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and elsewhere in that region of Asia.

Around one million members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya community live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, many after fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar.

"This new funding allows our humanitarian partners to continue providing life-saving assistance to affected communities on both sides of the Burma-Bangladesh border," State Department spokesman Ned Price said, using the old name for Myanmar.

He said the new money raises to $2.1 billion the total of US aid provided to the Rohingya people since August 2017.