ADDIS ABABA: The African Union expressed dismay Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, urging his administration to reconsider.
Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the US to withdraw from the UN agency, which threatens to leave global health initiatives short of funding.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from the Geneva-based WHO.
Washington is easily the biggest financial contributor to the organization and the pullout comes as Africa faces a range of health crises, including recent outbreaks of mpox and Marburg viruses.
“Now more than ever, the world depends on WHO to carry out its mandate to ensure global public health security as a shared common good,” Moussa Faki said, adding he hopes “the US government will reconsider its decision.”
He said Washington was an early supporter of the Africa CDC, the African Union’s health watchdog which works with the WHO to counter present and emerging pandemics.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and said prior to his inauguration that “World Health ripped us off.”
The United States was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO during Trump’s first term, but the move was reversed under Joe Biden.
Tom Frieden, a former US senior health official, wrote on X that the withdrawal “weakens America’s influence, increases the risk of a deadly pandemic, and makes all of us less safe.”
It comes as fears grow of the pandemic potential of a bird flu outbreak, which has infected dozens and claimed its first human life in the United States earlier this month.
WHO member states have been negotiating the world’s first treaty on handling future pandemics since late 2021 — negotiations now set to proceed without the US.
African Union ‘dismayed’ US withdrawing from WHO
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African Union ‘dismayed’ US withdrawing from WHO
- AU’s Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from WHO
- Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
Dreams on hold for Rohingya children in Bangladesh camps
- Around half a million children live in the camps housing the waves of Rohingya who have escaped Myanmar in recent years, many during a brutal military crackdown in 2017
COX’S BAZAR: Books tucked under their arms, children file into a small classroom in Bangladesh’s vast refugee camps, home to more than a million Rohingya who have fled neighboring Myanmar.
“They still dream of becoming pilots, doctors or engineers,” said their teacher Mohammad Amin, standing in front of a crowded schoolroom in Cox’s Bazar.
“But we don’t know if they will ever reach their goals with the limited opportunities available.”
Around half a million children live in the camps housing the waves of Rohingya who have escaped Myanmar in recent years, many during a brutal military crackdown in 2017. The campaign, which saw Rohingya villages burned and civilians killed, is the subject of a genocide case at the UN top court in The Hague, where hearings opened on Monday.
In the aftermath of the 2017 exodus, international aid groups and UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, rushed to open schools.
By 2024, UNICEF and its partners were running more than 6,500 learning centers across the Cox’s Bazar camps, educating up to 300,000 children. But the system is severely overstretched. “The current system provides three hours of instruction per day for children,” said Faria Selim of UNICEF. “The daily contact hours are not enough.”
Khin Maung, a member of the United Council of Rohingya which represents refugees in the camps, said the education on offer leaves students ill-prepared to re-enter Myanmar’s school system should they return. “There is a severe shortage of teachers in the camps,” he said.
Hashim Ullah, 30, is the only teacher at a primary school run by an aid agency.
“I teach Burmese language, mathematics, science and life skills to 65 students in two shifts. I am not an expert in all subjects,” he said.
Such shortcomings are not lost on parents. For them, education represents their children’s only escape from the risks that stalk camp life — malnutrition, early marriage, child labor, trafficking, abduction or forced recruitment into one of the armed groups in Myanmar’s civil war.
As a result, some families supplement the aid-run schools with extra classes organized by members of their own community.
“At dawn and dusk, older children go to community-based high schools,” said father-of-seven Jamil Ahmad.
“They have good teachers,” and the only requirement is a modest tuition fee, which Jamil said he covered by selling part of his monthly food rations.
“Bangladesh is a small country with limited opportunities,” he said. “I’m glad that they have been hosting us.”
Fifteen-year-old Hamima Begum has followed the same path, attending both an aid-run school and a community high school.
“I want to go to college,” she said. “I am aiming to study human rights, justice, and peace — and someday I will help my community in their repatriation.”
But such schools are far too few to meet demand, especially for older children.
A 2024 assessment by a consortium of aid agencies and UN bodies concluded that school attendance falls from about 70 percent among children aged five to 14, to less than 20 percent among those aged 15 to 18.
Girls are particularly badly affected, according to the study.
