A maternity ward in one of the world's biggest refugee camps is where US foreign aid cuts are showing up most clearly on the scale. Reporting from Kakuma, a camp in northwest Kenya that houses close to 310,000 people, ProPublica describes how the Trump administration's decision to halt funding to the World Food Program triggered sharp reductions in food rations. Despite earlier assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving assistance would continue during a review of foreign aid, programs closed or shrank, and officials say hunger is now driving dangerous pregnancy complications.
At Kakuma's only hospital, run by the International Rescue Committee, the sole physician on duty in August, Dr. Kefa Otieno, told reporters he was seeing an epidemic of malnourished mothers and premature, underweight newborns. Blood is so scarce that Otieno has donated his own while operating. In a bare space known as the "kangaroo" room—no working incubators, just skin-to-skin care—two mothers, Monica and Binti, spent weeks keeping their premature infants warm and hoping for enough weight gain to be discharged. Their pregnancies were complicated by anemia and lack of food; one resorted to eating clay and charcoal, the other once went two days without eating and begged a vendor for a samosa pastry she couldn't afford to repay.
Inside the hospital, patients receive three sparse meals a day. Outside, rations have been cut so deeply that in August, the WFP limited distributions to about half the camp, assigning families to categories that meant some people, including Monica's husband and Binti, got nothing. Monica and her younger siblings were allocated roughly 420 calories per person per day. Over the summer, Al Jazeera reported that the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya has also been feeling the pressure of steep funding cuts. WFP officials have had to make "very difficult decisions about who gets to eat and who doesn't," per a correspondent for the outlet.
In late September, the US released $66 million for the WFP's Kenya operations—about 40% less than last year, notes ProPublica. The WFP says those funds will keep food flowing only through March, at levels still below what humanitarians consider the minimum. A senior State Department official said Washington continues to provide "hundreds of millions" of dollars to the WFP and is moving toward investments it argues will better serve US interests and allies like Kenya, while the White House budget office rejected blame for funding delays. The Japan Times has more on how aid cuts and resulting malnourishment in Kenya is affecting children overall.
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