Last update:
The United States Department of State and the White House did not respond to requests for comments yet.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump. (Image: Reuters)
In Ghana and Kenya, insecticide and mosquito networks sit in stores because US officials have not approved urgent anti-male campaigns.
In Haiti, a group that treat patients with HIV awaits permission to dispense medications that prevent mothers from giving their children.
In Myanmar, where the famine is coming and the United States is the largest help donor, a humanitarian worker described the situation as “chaos.”
Almost three weeks after the freezing of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in foreign aid, the programs that save lives worldwide remain closed while humanitarian workers fight to ensure the exemptions of the United States government for Keeping them open, Reuters told Reuters, dozens of Humanitarian workers and UN staff.
After Trump announced the freezing of 90 days on January 20, the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued exemptions for what he called “humanitarian assistance that saves life”, which included “Central Medicine, Medical Services , food, shelters and subsistence. “
But humanitarian workers and UN officials said that exemptions had caused generalized confusion, together with the fear that their US financing will never be restored.
They said they could not restart work without confirming first with their American counterparts if specific programs qualified for exemption. This was demonstrating to be almost impossible, they said, due to a breakdown of communication with US officials, some of whom had been fired or prohibited to speak.
The breakdown appeared in part by design. On January 31, the staff of the United States Agency for International Development, once it was told to the main delivery mechanism for American generosity, that does not communicate externally about exemption and what may or may not include , according to a previously not reported recording of the meeting reviewed by Reuters.
The United States Department of State and the White House did not respond to comments requests.
The spiral consequences of the freezing Aid in developing countries underline the damage to the real world of Trump’s concern of US initiatives designed to build global alliances by making the United States the most generous superpower in the world and Greater donor of individual aid.
Humanitarian workers had a list of urgent questions without response. Among them: What programs could continue? What qualifies how help to save lives? Food? Shelter? Medicine? And how do people prevent people from dying when almost all help services have closed at the same time?
With little orientation of US officials, humanitarian workers said their organizations made a caution error and closed programs instead of incurring expenses that the United States government could not reimburse, humanitarian workers said. Some described how American partners, often people who had worked for years, no longer respond to their phones or emails.
A gin headquarters who arrived in US officials was surprised by his response. “We ask: Can you tell us exactly what programs we should stop? Then we received a message that said ‘there is no more orientation’. This leaves us in a situation in which you have to choose which program is saving life, “said the official.” We have no money to pay it ourselves. We can’t spend money, I didn’t know if we have done it. “
The agitation was particularly acute in Usaid, now in disorder and was aimed at closing as a “criminal organization” by Trump’s efficiency tsar, billionaire Elon Musk.
In his executive order, Trump said the “industry and foreign aid bureaucracy” were “in many antithetical cases to US values.” He ordered the 90 -day pause awaiting a review of whether the aid was consistent with its foreign policy “America First”.
Most of those who spoke with Reuters requested anonymity, fear antagonizing the Trump administration and endangering the possible restoration of aid.
Two workers with help organizations in Myanmar told Reuters that they did not know if the distribution of food financed by the United States in the country was covered by an exemption and would continue. One of the workers described the situation as “chaos.” Myanmar faces a severe food crisis due to natural disasters and a civil war in spiral. It is estimated that two million people in the country are on the verge of famine, according to the UN.
The refugees also brought the worst part of the freezing of aid in Bangladesh, where the United States finances about 55% of the assistance to more than one million Rohingya of Myanmar who live in squalid fields. “Some essential services and that save life” had been interrupted by freezing, said the coordination group of the sector, an international help organization that supervises the camps, in a draft declaration previously not reported to local aid groups. The group did not respond to a request for comments.
A UN official in Bangladesh in search of clarity about which programs could remain open, he said that American counterparts “did not respond to phones.”
In Africa, humanitarian workers had to begin anti-male spray campaigns this month in Ghana and Keny USAID contractor.
A USAID memorandum, dated February 4 and seen by Reuters on Saturday, said that “the activities that save lives” to address malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases and conditions would be exempt from freezing. But campaigns to protect millions of people appeared waiting as helping workers sought clarifications about when the specific funds and malaria programs in Africa would resume could restart, said the contractor.
Malaria, a preventable disease, is caused by parasites transmitted to people by infected mosquito bites. The vast majority of the 597,000 malaria deaths in the world in 2023 were African children under five years, said the World Health Organization in December.
“There is a small window to make those campaigns that will close quickly,” said USAID’s contractor.
Millions of dollars from US taxpayers already spent on supplies to fight malaria in Africa could be wasted, humanitarian workers said. The malaria no more, a non -profit organization based in Washington, said that freezing could prevent the distribution of 15.6 million treatments to save lives, nine million networks and 48 million doses of preventive medicine.
The United States is the main donor in the global fight against malaria, mainly through the president’s malaria initiative, known as PMI, established under former President George W. Bush in 2005. The PMI website, which included information On populations at risk of malaria, it has been withdrawn and replaced by a brief statement: “To be consistent with the president’s executive orders, this website is currently in maintenance as we quickly reviewed the bottom we review all the content.”
“It’s as if all work. . . He has just erased, “said Anne Linn, a USAID employee who worked remotely in Montana as a technical advisor and was fired on January 28.” It is very cruel and meaningless, “he said.” Waste is amazing for me. “
In Haiti, a program that provides treatment to patients with AIDS was supposed to be exempt from the freezing of aid under an exemption from the State Department, but remained closed because he had not received specific written instructions to open, said a worker in the program Non -profit. She said the funds for the program come from the emergency plan of the president of the United States for AIDS relief, known as Pepfar, the world’s main initiative to combat HIV.
The State Department, which manages Pepfar, said on February 1 that the program was covered by the exemption for humanitarian assistance that save lives. But the humanitarian worker said she had not received paperwork confirming that they could continue distributing medicine.
“Everything is closed until again notice,” he said.
In 2024, the United States provided 60% of Haiti’s humanitarian financing, for a total of $ 208 million, according to the UN financial monitoring service.
Agitation in Usaid
The problems were exacerbated by agitation in USAID, whose Trump leaders have described as “left -wing radical lunatics.”
The Trump administration plans to keep the 611 personnel in USAID out of its world total of more than 10,000, according to a notice sent to the agency on February 5 and reviewed by Reuters.
The main humanitarian aid agency in Washington has been the objective of a government reorganization program headed by Musk, a nearby Trump ally, since the Republican president assumed the position on January 20. The staff has been excluded from the agency headquarters in Washington. Rubio has designated himself the interim administrator of the agency.
An expert in water and sanitation spoke of “mass confusion” at the USAID Global Health Office after she and dozens of others were fired on January 28. “It happened so fast that it had no way to save emails, contacts,” he said. “We were all thrown and dragged.”
‘People are going to die’
In Thailand, the Freeze AID forced the International Rescue Committee, which finances health clinics with the support of the United States, to quickly close the hospital and the clinics that was executed in seven refugee fields on the border of Myanmar-Thai. American officials told IRC that they could not reopen before receiving another notification, which has not arrived, a help worker said.
Many were discharged from the IRC facilities, leaving people, including pregnant women and children, unable to access medicines or medical equipment, said Francois Nosten, director of the Malaria Shoklo Research Unit, a field station in the Border camps led by the Mahidol University of Bangkok.
An old woman, who had been hospitalized with lung problems and depended on oxygen, died four days after being discharged, according to her family. Reuters could not independently confirm his cause of death.
An IRC spokesman said that some refugees had “self -organized” to provide critical services for themselves until the support of the aid was “made” the Thai authorities.
If “you cut all the activities, some people are going to die,” they said.
By
