US aid freeze claims first victims as oxygen supplies cut off

Yahoo

11-02-2025

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding.
Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington's decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days.
Her family told Reuters that she had frequently been sent to hospital in the last three years as she was dependent on a supply of oxygen, but was sent home after the IRC received a 'stop-work' order in late January.
The organisation operates clinics that cater to roughly 80,000 people in nine refugee camps close to the Myanmar border, but abruptly closed and locked several hospitals to comply with the uncompromising US directive. The agency may be subject to an exemption as it offers lifesaving assistance, but it is not yet clear when a waiver could be issued.
Thai authorities are trying to stem some of the gaps and local people are 'self-mobilising' to offer limited care, but it is already too late for Phe Kha Lau, who is among the first known fatalities of the USAID freeze.
Within days of leaving the IRC hospital, the 71-year-old was struggling to breathe and asked to return to the facility.
'I had to tell her that there is no hospital,' Yin Yin Aye, her 50-year-old daughter, told Reuters in a teary phone call.
Pe Kha Lau's son-in law, Tin Win, added that before the closure, 'whenever she got short of breath, I would carry her right away back to hospital and she would be fine'.
'We are very poor people,' he said. 'I work as a day labourer. We can't afford oxygen at home.'
Pe Kha Lau is not the only one affected. In Umpiem Mai camp in Thailand, which is home to more than 10,000 people who fled the brutal civil war in neighbouring Myanmar, a resident and a health worker told ABC that multiple patients who were reliant on oxygen have now died.
'The medical workers left without even taking the equipment and the patients had to return to their homes, including some who had to be carried out,' said Sulaiman Mawlawi, a camp resident. 'It was a very tragic moment for us.'
There are also reports of refugees giving birth in former school buildings after the hospital closures.
A complicated conflict has been raging in Myanmar since the military seized power four years ago. Almost a third of the population is now reliant on humanitarian aid, while at least 3.5 million have been internally displaced since February 2021. Hundreds of thousands more have fled the country, including into neighbouring Thailand.
Although Asia is not the biggest recipient of US aid – of the $60 billion in foreign assistance that was frozen by the Trump administration, roughly $3.9 billion is spent in South and Central Asia, and $2.1 billion in East Asia and Oceania – the freeze has hit Myanmar especially hard.
America spends around $200 million a year in the country, making it the largest donor, and roughly $40 million goes towards health.
One doctor working inside Myanmar – whose group receives roughly $1.5 million from USAID each year, but who asked not to be named amid concerns it could affect funding in the future – said the sudden halt demonstrates 'a total lack of respect for ill people and life'.
'The stopping and then restarting – instead of planning and then deciding what to stop and what to continue – has of course caused numerous avoidable deaths,' he told the Telegraph, adding that he knows of at least seven NGOs that have stopped some activities.
He said that the full ramifications may take some time to unfold.
'Most of the time you will not see the worst consequences immediately,' the doctor said by email. 'If you stop TB or AIDS treatment it can take months, a year before the patient dies. However, the patient's bacteria or virus might have developed resistance which will make it much more difficult to treat when you re-start.'
Another medic in central Myanmar, a region hard hit by the conflict, said his team have had to pause services because they do not have reserve funds to stem gaps from the USAID freeze. His group receives close to $2 million a year.
'We will lose that amount to save the lives of the people – so it is frustrating for us,' he told the Telegraph, also asking to remain anonymous. 'Without the US, we don't have funds to continue a lot of our work.'
Tom Kean, a Myanmar researcher at the Crisis Group thinktank, said that although 'life-saving humanitarian assistance' is supposed to be exempt – as well as efforts to tackle diseases such as malaria, newborn deaths and malnutrition – many of these programmes are still waiting for confirmation they can continue.
'Without confirmation, they risk incurring expenses that USAID then refuses to reimburse – a risk they literally can't afford to take,' he said. 'It's also very unclear at this stage whether the programmes that have definitely been suspended pending review – those that are not providing 'life-saving humanitarian assistance' – will be allowed to resume or cancelled.'
He added that USAID's partners, who implement programmes on the ground, and their beneficiaries have been left in a 'terrible position' as the chaos continues.
'There's nothing wrong with a review of aid spending – this happens regularly. But existing programming should have been allowed to continue while the review is carried out.'
The Telegraph has contacted the US Embassy in Bangkok for comment.
The IRC has not yet responded to the Telegraph, but told Reuters: 'To hear of this loss of life is devastating and we offer our condolences to the family and friends of Pe Kha Lau.'
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