WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has ended funding to UN World Food Programme emergency programmes helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.
The World Food Programme, the largest provider of food aid, appealed to the US to roll back the new cuts in a social media post Monday. The unexpected round of contract cancellations has targeted some of the last remaining humanitarian programmes run by the US Agency for International Development, according to two US officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.
“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP said on X.
The agency said it was in contact with the Trump administration “to urge for continued support” for life-saving programmes and thanked the United States and other donors for past contributions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programmes and other life-and-death aid from deep cuts to US foreign assistance.
There was no immediate comment Monday from the State Department.
The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programmes, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.
Programmes targeted by Trump administration
In Syria, a country battling poverty, hunger and insecurity after a 13-year civil war and an insurgency by the Islamic State group, some $230 million in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups was terminated in recent days, according to a State Department document detailing the cuts that was obtained by the AP.
The single biggest of the targeted Syria programmes, at $111 million, provided bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people, the document says.
About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said all US aid to WFP food programmes across Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, has been stopped, apparently including food that already had arrived in distribution centers.
WFP also received termination letters for US-funded programmes in Lebanon and Jordan, where Syrian refugees would be hit hardest, the UN official said.
Some of the last remaining US. funding for key programmes in Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, one of the US officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Current and former USAID experts and partners said some $560 million in humanitarian aid was cut to Afghanistan, including for emergency food assistance, the treatment of severely malnourished babies, life-saving medical care, safe drinking water, and emergency mental health treatment for survivors of sexual and physical violence.
