Children die as USAID aid cuts snap a lifeline for the world’s most malnourished

DIKWA, Nigeria (AP):

Under the dappled light of a thatched shelter, Yagana Bulama cradles her surviving infant. The other twin is gone, a casualty of malnutrition and the international funding cuts that are snapping the lifeline for displaced communities in Nigeria’s insurgency-ravaged Borno state.

“Feeding is severely difficult,” said Bulama, 40, who was a farmer before Boko Haram militants swept through her village, forcing her to flee. She and about 400,000 other people at the humanitarian hub of Dikwa – virtually the entire population – rely on assistance. The military restricts their movements to a designated “safe zone”, which severely limits farming.

For years, the United States Agency for International Development had been the backbone of the humanitarian response in northeastern Nigeria, helping non-government organizations provide food, shelter and healthcare to millions of people. But this year, the Trump administration cut more than 90 per cent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world.

Programmes serving children were hit hard.

Bulama previously lost young triplets to hunger before reaching therapeutic feeding centres in Dikwa. When she gave birth to twins last August, both were severely underweight. Workers from Mercy Corps enrolled them in a programme to receive a calorie-dense paste used to treat severe acute malnutrition.

But in February, Mercy Corps abruptly ended the programme that was entirely financed by USAID. Two weeks later, one of the twins died, Bulama said.

She has no more tears, only dread for what may come next.

“I don’t want to bury another child,” she said.

Globally, 50 per cent of the therapeutic foods for treating malnutrition in children were funded by USAID, and 40 per cent of the supplies were produced in the US, according to Shawn Baker, chief programme officer at Helen Keller Intl and former chief nutritionist at USAID.

‘VERY TRAUMATIC’

He said the consequence could be one million children not receiving treatment for severe malnutrition, resulting in 163,500 additional deaths per year. For Helen Keller Intl, its programmes in Bangladesh, Nepal and Nigeria have been terminated.

“It is very traumatic,” said Trond Jensen, the head of the United Nations humanitarian office in Maiduguri, Borno’s capital, of the funding cuts, noting that other donors, including the European Union, have taken similar steps this year. “One of the things is the threat to the lives of children.”

UNICEF still runs a therapeutic feeding center nearby, which now supports Bulama’s surviving baby, but its capacity is stretched. It is turning away many people previously served by other aid groups that have pulled out due to funding cuts.

Intersos, an Italian humanitarian organisation, has the only remaining facility providing in-patient services for malnutrition in Dikwa, treating the most perilous cases. Its workers say they are overwhelmed, with at least 10 new admissions of seriously malnourished children daily.

“Before the USAID cut, we made a lot of progress,” said Ayuba Kauji, a health and nutrition supervisor. “Now my biggest worry is high mortality. We don’t have enough resources to keep up.”

The effects of the funding cuts extend far beyond nutrition. At the International Organization for Migration’s reception center in Dikwa, thousands of displaced families and those escaping Boko Haram captivity are stranded. There are no new shelters being built and no support for relocation.

“Before, organisations like Mercy Corps built mud-brick homes and rehabilitated damaged shelters to absorb people from the IOM reception centre,” said one official at the centre, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly on the situation. “Now, that has stopped.”

Jensen, the UN humanitarian head in Maiduguri, said, “sadly, we are not seeing additional funding to make up for the US cuts”. He warned that vulnerable people could turn to risky ways of coping, including joining violent groups.

The crisis in Nigeria is part of a larger reckoning. According to Kate Phillips-Barrasso, Mercy Corps’ vice president for policy and advocacy, 40 of its 62 US-funded programmes with the potential to reach 3.5 million people in Nigeria, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Lebanon and Gaza have been terminated.

In Mozambique, where jihadist violence in the north has displaced over a million people since 2017, humanitarian organisations face steep shortfalls with “devastating” effects on the needy, said Frederico João, chairman of the forum of NGOs in the region.

More widely, the USAID funding cut compromises Mozambique’s health sector, especially in HIV/AIDS care, said Inocêncio Impissa, cabinet spokesman. The government now seeks alternative funding to prevent total collapse of health systems.