text: The United Nations food agency is pressing for immediate access to Burma’s troubled northern Rakhine state amid accusations that it shelved a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Muslim population. 
   
   A July assessment by the World Food Programme (WFP) warning that more than 80,000 children under the age of five in majority-Muslim areas were “wasting” – a potentially fatal condition – was removed from public view at the request of the Burmese government, the Guardian reported. 
   
   Instead, the six-page document has been replaced with a statement saying Burma and the WFP are “collaborating on a revised version” and that the report should not be cited in any way. 
   
   Greg Barrow, WFP’s deputy director of communications told the Telegraph that the organisation “stood by” its findings. 
   
   But he said a new assessment had to be made in light of dramatic changes on the ground since a military operation was launched against the Rohingya population after insurgents attacked security posts on August 25. 
   
   However, the WFP, along with other humanitarian aid agencies has been denied access to the conflict zone, a restriction it is urging the Burmese authorities to lift. ||||| The United Nations food aid agency withdrew a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Rohingya population after the Myanmar government demanded it be taken down, the Guardian has learned. 
   
   
   
   The July assessment by the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that more than 80,000 children under the age of five living in majority-Muslim areas were “wasting” — a potentially fatal condition of rapid weight loss. 
   
   Rohingya crisis: UN 'suppressed' report predicting its shortcomings in Myanmar Read more 
   
   The six-page document, which was reported on at the time, was replaced with a statement saying Myanmar and WFP were “collaborating on a revised version”. 
   
   That process would involve “representatives from various ministries, and will respond to the need for a common approach” that was in line with “WFP’s future cooperation with the government”. 
   
   The report should not be cited in any way, the statement added. 
   
   However, WFP’s executive director David Beasley said in an emailed statement to the Guardian later on Tuesday that the agency would republish the report. 
   
   “The assessment should not have been removed and I have directed that it be republished immediately in its original form,” Beasley said. “Put simply, the World Food Programme stands firmly behind the findings of the report.” 
   
   He said that the level of food needs in Rakhine state had likely since changed for the worse and called for authorities to allow free and unhindered access to aid deliveries. 
   
   The revelation that the report was spiked will add to a series of recent criticisms that UN did not push the government hard enough for the rights of 1.1 million Rohingya in Myanmar or sound the alarm on their spiralling oppression. 
   
   The issue exploded on 25 August when Rohingya insurgents attacked security forces, who responded with a severe counteroffensive. More than half a million Rohingya have since fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many alleging the army conducted mass killings and rapes, claims the government denies. 
   
   The UN’s most senior official in the country will leave at the end of the month amid allegations she suppressed another report, a damning consultation of the UN’s strategy, and also attempted to shut down public advocacy on Rohingya suffering. She leaves in the middle of the current crisis, the worst in decades, while a replacement has not been publicly announced. 
   
   Asked why the July study on Rakhine state was removed, WFP said earlier that it was withdrawn from the website “following a request by the government to conduct a joint review”. 
   
   The August violence, however, halted the joint review, it said. 
   
   A consultant who has worked with the UN’s Myanmar office including WFP said the agency’s in-country team were already extremely nervous about the report getting too much attention. 
   
   The assessment indicated that controversial WFP food aid cuts to internally displaced Rohingya over the previous two years had left people in dire need, said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely. 
   
   “That was the discussion that was going on behind the scenes and at a senior level,” the source said. “They knew it was potentially damaging. It was all to do with the fact that internally, there was a belief that the decision made to stop feeding some of the [internally displaced people] was actually causing people serious harm, in terms of food security, hunger and even starvation. 
   
   “There was a real sense that they had things to hide in their work in Myanmar. Things had not been going to plan there,” the source added. 
   
   The WFP country office had also been prioritising its relationship with the government above humanitarian needs, the source added, in an attempt to attract millions in donor funding by showing it had government-approved access to work in other parts of the country. 
   
   “It’s a funny thing in the UN. It’s all about how much money you can raise,” the source said. But the access came at the expense of Myanmar’s most hated minority, the Rohingya, a toxic topic to raise with the government, leading to it being side-lined. 
   
   Meanwhile, WFP knew the “government wouldn’t have been happy”, the source said, about the report, which found that in one district, Maungdaw, one-third of all homes were experiencing extreme food deprivation. 
   
   The report called for further humanitarian assistance for more than 225,000 people, a move the government, which has since blocked aid to Rakhine, would not want. 
   
   And alarmingly, the assessment pointed to widespread accounts of security forces preventing Rohingya from reach markets and their crops. 
   
   Documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis – in pictures Read more 
   
   “Restriction of movement was one of the main constraints for the population for accessing food,” it said. “Residents still did not have full access to the forest, agricultural land and fishing grounds due to continuous military presence.” 
   
   The Guardian has contacted the Myanmar government for comment. 
   
   WFP did not respond directly to questions about whether food aid cuts had left vulnerable people in need or whether it the agency had prioritised good relations with the government over the immediate humanitarian needs of the Rohingya. 
   
   “WFP’s purpose in Myanmar is and always has been to address the food and nutrition needs of vulnerable people,” it said. ||||| For Half A Million Rohingya Fleeing Myanmar, Bangladesh Is A Reluctant Host 
   
   Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR Michael Sullivan for NPR 
   
   537,000: That's the number of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh in the past seven weeks, according to the U.N. 
   
   It's the largest migration of people in Asia in decades. The Rohingya are fleeing a campaign of terror by the Myanmar military and Buddhist vigilantes, something the U.N. has called the world's "fastest developing refugee emergency" and a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." 
   
   It's not the first time this has happened. Members of Myanmar's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority have been fleeing military crackdowns for decades — as far back as 1978, and as recently as last October and November, when the military launched "clearance operations" after a series of attacks by Rohingya militants on security outposts in Rakhine State. Similar attacks in August prompted this latest wave of rape, murder and arson, entire villages torched by security forces and Buddhist vigilantes. 
   
   Bangladesh reckons about 800,000 Rohingya are now living on its side of the border. Most are in overcrowded, spontaneously erected camps, staying in shelters that amount to little more than bamboo poles strapped together with a bit of plastic sheeting for a roof. 
   
   Even before the latest wave of arrivals, Bangladesh was uneasy with the number of Rohingya in country. Now it's trying to do something about it. 
   
   "We need to know for accountability how many Rohingyas come to our country," says Maj. Kazi Obaidur Reza, with Bangladesh's border guards. 
   
   He supervises the registration effort at the Kutapalong camp, just a few miles from the border. Hundreds of Rohingya line up patiently in the hot sun, waiting for their temporary IDs. Inside, it's a flurry of activity. 
   
   Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR Michael Sullivan for NPR 
   
   "We are taking photographs; they are giving biometrics of all fingers and they are getting this card where all documents are written — from where they come, date of entry into country, date of birth, mother's name — so we can easily identify all of them," Reza says. 
   
   This procedure is not just for the new arrivals, he says, but for all the Rohingya who have come at one time or another from the other side. 
   
   Many Rohingya are getting something they never had in Myanmar — an official document that acknowledges their identity. 
   
   Rashid Ulla, a rail-thin 35-year-old from Myanmar's Maungdaw township, proudly shows me his. Under "Nationality," it says "Myanmar Rohingya." 
   
   "I'm happy to have an ID that says I am Rohingya," he says. 
   
   Back in Myanmar, the government doesn't use the word — it doesn't consider the Rohingya citizens. 
   
   But the Bangladeshi IDs aren't permanent. And the Rohingya aren't recognized officially as refugees. Bangladesh is wary of getting stuck with them permanently. 
   
   "And that matters," says Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch. "They're being given a camp residency card, which basically gives them access to food rations. But Bangladesh is still very far away from recognizing them formally as refugees. And that matters, because if they're not registered refugees it means that they don't have access to education. They have very limited ability to move around." 
   
   That ability is getting more limited every day. At a checkpoint just down the road from the Kutapalong camp, about a dozen Bangladeshi police, their rifles slung over their backs, are flagging down buses, cars and auto rickshaws, looking for Rohingya. Those they find get turned back to the informal camps where they came from on the Bangladeshi side of the border. 
   
   Police official Hasanuzzaman Mollah says this is one of 11 checkpoints on the road from the border to the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar. 
   
   "Our purpose is to restrict their access into Cox's Bazar or beyond," he says, as one of his men boards a bus to check the passengers. "We cannot allow them to disperse throughout our country." 
   
   It's a security issue — and a political one as well. Some of the Rohingya who have been in Bangladesh for a long time have been accused of involvement in the smuggling and drug trades. 
   
   In this part of the country, it's an economic issue too. Though the Rohingya aren't allowed to work or go to school, some find jobs under the table — mostly in the construction or building trades, where their legally ambiguous status means employers can pay them less than they'd pay Bangladeshis. 
   
   This has created resentment among residents, though overall, there is public support and Bangladeshis — rich and poor — have greeted the latest influx of refugees with generosity. 
   
   Security officials and some independent analysts, however, do worry that Bangladesh's own Islamist extremists — some with ties to transnational terrorist groups — will try to exploit new arrivals. 
   
   "One of my big fears now is that a lot of these groups with ties come in and pick off recruits from these [Rohingya] communities," says security analyst Elliot Brennan, an Australia-based independent researcher who specializes in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. "Maybe not taking them to Myanmar, but taking them back to different areas and as a result, we have a general recruitment body as the situation deteriorates in the camps and the people become more desperate." 
   
   In the meantime, some religious hardliners in Muslim-majority Bangladesh are stirring the pot. Some are calling to arm the Rohingya. Others are even talking about war with the Buddhist majority neighbor. 
   
   That is creating more political problems for a government already overwhelmed by the sheer number of new arrivals. Bangladesh's preferred option is for the Rohingya to be repatriated, to live safely back in Myanmar. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the U.N. General Assembly last month that the U.N. should set up and police "safe areas" inside Myanmar for that very purpose. 
   
   Enlarge this image toggle caption Munir UZ Zaman/AFP/Getty Images Munir UZ Zaman/AFP/Getty Images 
   
   That doesn't look likely. And it's highly unlikely the Rohingya will even be allowed — or want — to return after the horrors they've been subjected to. 
   
   So for now, Bangladesh is hosting them. But there may be a limit to its patience. The government is setting up a new megacamp that will encompass many of the existing informal camps that have sprung up in the past several weeks and decades. All the Rohingya in Bangladesh will be required to live there, and only there. 
   
   The U.N. resident coordinator in Bangladesh, Robert D. Watkins, told Agence France-Presse this will pose problems. 
   
   "When you concentrate too many people into a very small area, particularly the people who are very vulnerable to diseases, it is dangerous," Watkins warned. "It is much easier to manage people, manage the health situation and security situation if there are a number of different camps rather than one concentrated camp." 
   
   Bangladeshi officials are adamant, however, that the new camp is the best solution to ensure its own security and that of the Rohingya. Human Rights Watch's Bouckaert, like Watkins, is not convinced. 
   
   "If Bangladesh wants to contain people in camps, first of all they need to respect their rights," he says. "But secondly, they also have to provide the humanitarian assistance, the education, the health assistance that people need to survive. And that is simply not the reality we see today." 
   
   The reality today is more urgent for both Bangladesh and its humanitarian aid partners: simply finding enough food, water and adequate sanitation for the new arrivals. 
   
   How they're treated once that's sorted out is another matter. And Bangladesh is the only country that has taken the Rohingya in. Nobody else has offered to share that burden.
target: – A July report describing near starvation in Myanmar's Rakhine state has been expunged from the UN website—at Myanmar's request. Myanmar was upset with the report's claim that military forces were blocking access to food for the Rohingya even before a government crackdown led 537,000 to flee to Bangladesh, per NPR. But the Guardian reports the UN's World Food Program might have its own reasons for wanting the report erased. According to one source, UN officials knew the report was "potentially damaging," as it suggested WFP food aid cuts to the Rohingya over a two-year period were causing harm, even starvation. "There was a real sense that they had things to hide," the source says. The WFP tells a very different story: The agency "stands by its original assessment" that 80,000 Rohingya children under the age of five were suffering from potentially fatal weight loss in Rakhine in July. However, the food situation will have changed since an "upsurge in violence" in August, "just months before the next harvest," a rep tells the Telegraph. "In a dynamic and evolving situation, it is important to coordinate closely with all partners, including the government," WFP adds, noting its decision to scrap the previous report came "following a request by the government to conduct a joint review." That review has stalled with Myanmar keeping agencies out of the conflict zone, however. The WFP says it's continuing to push for access.