Charity says 400,000 children in Syria risk ‘severe malnutrition' after US cuts
Save the Children said on Wednesday that more than 400,000 children in Syria were at risk of 'severe malnutrition' after the United States suspended aid, forcing the charity to slash operations in the war-torn country.
Bujar Hoxha, Save the Children's Syria director, in a statement called on the international community to urgently fill the funding gap, warning that needs were 'higher than ever' after years of war and economic collapse.
'More than 416,000 children in Syria are now at significant risk of severe malnutrition following the sudden suspension of foreign aid,' Save the Children said in a statement, adding separately that the cuts were those of the United States.
The global aid situation has grown dire since US President Donald Trump ordered the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development early this year.
His administration scrapped 83 percent of humanitarian programs funded by USAID.
The agency had an annual budget of $42.8 billion, representing 42 percent of total global humanitarian aid.
The suspension has 'forced the closure of one third of Save the Children's life-saving nutrition activities' across Syria, the charity said, halting 'vital care for over 40,500 children' aged under five.
Hoxha said the closure of the charity's nutrition centers 'comes at the worst possible time' with 'the needs in Syria are higher than ever.'
Its clinics that are still open are 'reporting a surge in malnutrition cases while struggling to keep up with the growing demand for care', the charity added.
More than 13 years of conflict in Syria ravaged the country, with the health system shattered and infrastructure hobbled.
In February, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report estimated that nine out of 10 Syrians now live in poverty and face food insecurity with 'malnutrition on the rise, particularly among children.'
Save the Children said more than 650,000 children under five in Syria were now 'chronically malnourished', while more than 7.5 million children nationwide needed humanitarian assistance, which it said was the highest number since the crisis began.
Hoxha urged the international community to 'urgently step up' to fill the funding gap.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
27-05-2025
- Arab News
US aid kept many hungry Somali children alive. Now that money is disappearing
MOGADISHU, Somalia: The cries of distressed children filled the ward for the severely malnourished. Among the patients was 1-year-old Maka'il Mohamed. Doctors pressed his chest in a desperate attempt to support his breathing. His father brought him too late to a hospital in Somalia 's capital, Mogadishu. The victim of complications related to malnutrition, the boy did not survive. 'Are you certain? Did he really die?' the father, Mohamed Ma'ow, asked a doctor, shocked. The death earlier this month at Banadir Hospital captured the agony of a growing number of Somalis who are unable to feed their children — and that of health workers who are seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in US support disappear under the Trump administration. The US Agency for International Development once provided 65 percent of Somalia's foreign aid, according to Dr. Abdiqani Sheikh Omar, the former director general of the Ministry of Health and now a government adviser. Now USAID is being dismantled. And in Somalia, dozens of centers treating the hungry are closing. They have been crucial in a country described as having one of the world's most fragile health systems as it wrestles with decades of insecurity. Save the Children, the largest non-governmental provider of health and nutrition services to children in Somalia, said the lives of 55,000 children will be at risk by June as it closes 121 nutrition centers it can no longer fund. Aid cuts mean that 11 percent more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in the previous year, Save the Children said. Somalia has long faced food insecurity because of climate shocks like drought. But aid groups and Somalis alike now fear a catastrophe. Former Somali Foreign Minister Ahmed Moalin told state-run TV last month that USAID had provided $1 billion in funding for Somalia in fiscal year 2023, with a similar amount expected for 2024. Much of that funding is now gone. A US State Department spokesperson in a statement to the AP said 'several lifesaving USAID humanitarian assistance programs are active in Somalia, including programs that provide food and nutrition assistance to children,' and they were working to make sure the programs continue when such aid transitions to the State Department on July 1. The problem, aid workers say, is the US hasn't made clear what programs are lifesaving, or whether whatever funding is left will continue after July 1. The aid group CARE has warned that 4.6 million people in Somalia are projected to face severe hunger by June, an uptick of hundreds of thousands of people from forecasts before the aid cuts. The effects are felt in rural areas and in Mogadishu, where over 800,000 displaced people shelter. Camps for them are ubiquitous in the city's suburbs, but many of their centers for feeding the hungry are now closing. Some people still go to the closed centers and hope that help will come. Mogadishu residents said they suffer, too. Ma'ow, the bereaved father, is a tailor. He said he had been unable recently to provide three meals a day for his family of six. His wife had no breast milk for Maka'il, whose malnutrition deteriorated between multiple trips to the hospital. Doctors confirmed that malnutrition was the primary factor in Maka'il's decline. The nutrition center at Banadir Hospital where Ma'ow family had been receiving food assistance is run by Alight Africa, a local partner for the UN children's agency, UNICEF, and one that has lost funding. The funding cuts have left UNICEF's partners unable to provide lifesaving support, including therapeutic supplies and supplemental nutrition at a time when 15 percent of Somali children are acutely malnourished, said Simon Karanja, a regional UNICEF official. One Alight Africa worker, Abdullahi Hassan, confirmed that the group had to close all their nutrition centers in several districts of Mogadishu. One nutrition project supervisor for the group, Said Abdullahi Hassan, said closures have caused, 'tragically, the deaths of some children.' Without the food assistance they had taken for granted, many Somalis are seeing their children waste away. More than 500 malnourished children were admitted to the center for malnourished children at Banadir Hospital between April and May, according to Dr. Mohamed Jama, head of the nutrition center. He said such increases in patients usually occur during major crises like drought or famine but called the current situation unprecedented. 'The funding gap has impacted not only the malnourished but also health staff, whose salaries have been cut,' he said. Fadumo Ali Adawe, a mother of five who lives in one of the camps, said she urgently needed help for her 3-year-old daughter, malnourished now for nine months. The nearby nutrition center she frequented is now closed. 'We are unsure of what to do next,' she said. Inside that center, empty food packages were strewn about — and USAID posters still hung on the walls.
Arab News
16-05-2025
- Arab News
Children die as USAID aid cuts snap a lifeline for the world's most malnourished
DIKWA, Nigeria: 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 health care to millions of people. But this year, the Trump administration cut more than 90 percent of USAID's foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world. Programs serving children were hit hard. Bulama previously lost young triplets to hunger before reaching therapeutic feeding centers in Dikwa. When she gave birth to twins last August, both were severely underweight. Workers from Mercy Corps enrolled them in a program to receive a calorie-dense paste used to treat severe acute malnutrition. But in February, Mercy Corps abruptly ended the program 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. 'Very traumatic' Globally, 50 percent of the therapeutic foods for treating malnutrition in children were funded by USAID, and 40 percent of the supplies were produced in the US, according to Shawn Baker, chief program officer at Helen Keller Intl and former chief nutritionist at USAID. He said the consequence could be 1 million children not receiving treatment for severe malnutrition, resulting in 163,500 additional deaths per year. For Helen Keller Intl, its programs 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 organization, 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.' Intersos was forced to reduce its staff from 30 to 11 in Dikwa after the USAID freeze. Its nutrition and health facilities now operate solely on support from the Nigerian Humanitarian Fund, a smaller pot of money contributed by a few European countries. That funding will be finished in June. The crisis is equally acute in Maiduguri, where the economy is reeling from massive terminations of aid workers. At another Intersos-run facility, 10 of the 12 doctors have left and four nurses remain, with 50 new admissions of malnourished children per week. 'It used to be far less,' said Emmanuel Ali, one of the remaining doctors. Beyond nutrition 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, organizations like Mercy Corps built mud-brick homes and rehabilitated damaged shelters to absorb people from the IOM reception center,' said one official at the center, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized 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. A global problem 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 programs 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 organizations 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.
Asharq Al-Awsat
06-05-2025
- Asharq Al-Awsat
US Aid Cuts Push Bangladesh's Health Sector to the Edge
Bangladesh hoped to celebrate progress towards eradicating tuberculosis this year, having already slashed the numbers dying from the preventable and curable disease by tens of thousands each year. Instead, it is reeling from a $48 million snap aid cut by US President Donald Trump's government, which health workers say could rapidly unravel years of hard work and cause huge numbers of preventable deaths, AFP said. "Doctors told me I was infected with a serious kind of tuberculosis," laborer Mohammed Parvej, 35, told AFP from his hospital bed after he received life-saving treatment from medics funded by the US aid who identified his persistent hacking cough. But full treatment for his multidrug-resistant tuberculosis requires more than a year of hospital care and a laborious treatment protocol -- and that faces a deeply uncertain future. "Bangladesh is among the seven most TB-prevalent countries globally, and we aim to eradicate it by 2035," said Ayesha Akhter, deputy director of the formerly US-funded specialized TB Hospital treating Parvej in the capital Dhaka. Bangladesh had made significant progress against the infectious bacteria, spread by spitting and sneezing, leaving people exhausted and sometimes coughing blood. TB deaths dropped from more than 81,000 a year in 2010, down to 44,000 in 2023, according to the World Health Organization, in the country of some 170 million people. Akhter said the South Asian nation had "been implementing a robust program", supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). "Then, one fine morning, USAID pulled out their assistance," she said. Starving children More than 80 percent of humanitarian programs funded by USAID worldwide have been scrapped. Tariful Islam Khan said the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) had, with US funding, carried out mass screening "improving TB case detection, particularly among children" from 2020 to 2024. "Thanks to the support of the American people... the project has screened 52 million individuals and diagnosed over 148,000 TB cases, including 18,000 children," he said. Funding cuts threatened to stall the work. "This work is critical not only for the health of millions of Bangladeshis, but also for global TB control efforts," he said. Growing rates of infectious diseases in one nation have a knock-on impact in the region. Cuts hit further than TB alone. "USAID was everywhere in the health sector," said Nurjahan Begum, health adviser to the interim government -- which is facing a host of challenges after a mass uprising toppled the former regime last year. US aid was key to funding vaccines combatting a host of other diseases, protecting 2.3 million children against diphtheria, measles, polio and tetanus. "I am particularly worried about the immunization program," Begum said. "If there is a disruption, the success we have achieved in immunization will be jeapordised." Bangladeshi scientists have also developed a special feeding formula for starving children. That too has been stalled. "We had just launched the program," Begum said. "Many such initiatives have now halted". Pivot to China US State Department official Audrey M. Happ said that Washington was "committed" to ensuring aid was "aligned with the interests of the United States, and that resources are used as effectively and efficiently as possible". Bangladesh, whose economy and key garment industry are eyeing fearfully the end of the 90-day suspension of Trump's punishing 37 percent tariffs, is looking for other supporters. Some Arab nations had expressed interest in helping fill the gap in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. China, as well as Türkiye, may also step into Washington's shoes, Begum said. Jobs are gone too, with Dhaka's Daily Star newspaper estimating that between 30,000 and 40,000 people were laid off after the United States halted funding. Zinat Ara Afroze, fired along with 54 colleagues from Save the Children, said she worried for those she had dedicated her career to helping. "I have seen how these projects have worked improving the life and livelihoods of underprivileged communities," she said, citing programs ranging from food to health, environmental protection to democracy. "A huge number of this population will be in immediate crisis." Babies dying Those with the least have been hit the hardest. Less dollars for aid means more sick and dead among the Rohingya refugees who fled civil war in their home in neighboring Myanmar into Bangladesh since 2017. Much of the US aid was delivered through the UN's WHO and UNICEF children's agency. WHO official Salma Sultana said aid cuts ramped up risks of "uncontrolled outbreaks" of diseases including cholera in the squalid refugee camps. Faria Selim, from UNICEF, said reduced health services would impact the youngest Rohingya the hardest, especially some 160,000 children under five. Masaki Watabe, who runs the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Bangladesh working to improve reproductive and maternal health, said it was "trying its best to continue". Closed clinics and no pay for midwives meant the risk of babies and mothers dying had shot up. "Reduced donor funding has led to... increasing the risk of preventable maternal and newborn deaths," he said.
