GENEVA: The UN children’s agency UNICEF said Friday that it was studying the impact of drastic US aid cuts, with millions of children already affected by the funding freeze imposed last month.
US President Donald Trump, on his first day back in office last month, demanded a 90-day freeze on all US foreign aid to give his administration time to review overseas spending, with an eye to gutting programs not aligned with his “America First” agenda.
The State Department announced Wednesday that multi-year aid contracts were being slashed by 92 percent, in a bid to make around $60 billion in savings in development and overseas humanitarian programs.
“We have received termination notices for UNICEF grants, and they include humanitarian as well as development programming,” the agency’s spokesman James Elder said at a press conference in Geneva.
“We continue to assess the impact of those termination notices on our programs for children. But we already know that the initial pause has impacted programming for millions of children in roughly half the countries that we work.
“Without urgent action, without funding, more children are going to suffer malnutrition. Fewer will have access to education, and preventable illnesses will claim more lives,” he said.
“So it’s very clear that reduction in any funding during these exceedingly difficult times for children is putting child lives at risk at a time when they need support more than ever.”
The United States has, until now, been by far the world’s largest donor of humanitarian and development aid.
Geetanjali Narayan, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti, told the briefing that US aid was crucial to children’s lives in the poorest country in the Caribbean.
“The current situation is having a devastating impact on thousands of children at the moment in Haiti. We are seeing services are being cut, reduced,” she said.
“The impact in Haiti — in a country that is so stricken by conflict, violence and poverty — is extreme and it’s immediate: it is happening now.”
Narayan visited a primary health care center in northern Haiti in late January where nurses were weighing babies and screening for malnutrition, with the support of US aid via UNICEF.
“These activities will no longer be able to continue,” she said.
The agency’s partners and civil society organizations in the country have also been heavily affected, Narayan said.
Meanwhile the UN’s World Food Programme had more positive news, saying that two weeks ago, the freeze on in-kind food assistance to WFP, purchased from US farmers, was rescinded.
“We’ve been able to resume our regular operations under all the existing USAID grants that we have,” WFP Sudan spokeswoman Leni Kinzli told the briefing via video from Nairobi.
UN says millions of children already affected by US aid halt
https://arab.news/bvsjf
UN says millions of children already affected by US aid halt
- “We have received termination notices for UNICEF grants, and they include humanitarian as well as development programming,” the agency’s spokesman James Elder said
- “We continue to assess the impact of those termination notices on our programs for children”
Left homeless by blaze, Muslims in southernmost Philippines observe Ramadan as month of trial
- Thousands lost their homes when parts of Bongao in Tawi-Tawi were burnt to ashes
- Many trying to fully observe the fasting month say they are grateful to be alive
Manila: As Annalexis Abdulla Dabbang was looking forward to observing the month of Ramadan with her family, just days before it began they lost everything when an enormous fire tore through whole neighborhoods of their city in the southernmost province of the Philippines.
Bongao is the capital of Tawi-Tawi, an island province, forming part of the country’s Muslim minority heartland in the Bangsamoro region. The city experienced its worst fire in years in early February, when flames swept through the coastal community, leaving more than 5,000 people homeless.
“We were swimming for our lives. We had to swim to escape from the fire ... We swam in darkness, and (even) the sea was already hot because of the fire,” Dabbang, a 27-year-old teacher, told Arab News.
“Everything we owned was gone in just a few hours — our home, our memories, the things we worked hard for, everything turned to ashes.”
Trying to save their 2-year-old daughter and themselves, she and her husband left everything behind — as did hundreds of other families that together with them have since taken shelter at the Mindanao State University gymnasium — one of the evacuation centers.
Unable to secure a tent, Dabbang’s family has been sleeping on the bleachers, sharing a single mat as their bed. When Ramadan arrived a few days after they moved to the makeshift shelter, they welcomed it in a different, more solemn way. There is no family privacy for suhoor, no room or means to welcome guests for iftar.
“Ramadan feels different now. It’s painful but at the same time more real. When we lost our home, we began to understand what sacrifice really means. When you sleep in an evacuation center, you understand hunger, discomfort in a deeper way,” Dabbang said.
“We don’t prepare special dishes. We prepare our hearts.”
While she and thousands of others have lost everything they have ever owned, she has not lost her faith.
“Our dreams may have turned to ashes, but our prayers are still alive,” she said.
“This Ramadan my prayers are more emotional than ever. I pray for strength, not just for myself, but for my family and for every neighbor who also lost their family home. I pray for healing from the trauma of fire. I pray that Allah will replace what we lost with something better. I pray for the chance to rebuild not just our house, but our sense of security.”
Juraij Dayan Hussin, a volunteer helping the Bongao fire victims, observed that many of them were traumatized and the need to cleanse the heart and mind during Ramadan was what kept many of them going, because they are “thankful that even though they lost their property, they are still alive.”
But the religious observance related to the fasting month is not easy in a cramped shelter.
“It’s hard for Muslims to perform their prayers when they do not have their proper attire because they usually have specific clothes for prayer,” he said. “Sanitation in the area is also an issue ... when you fast and when you pray, cleanliness is essential.”
For Abdulkail Jani, who is staying at a basketball court with his brother and more than 70 other families, this Ramadan will be spent apart from their parents, whom they managed to move to relatives.
“The month of Ramadan this year is a month of trial ... there will be a huge change from how we observed Ramadan in the past, but we will adjust to it and try to comfort ourselves and our family. The most important thing is that we can perform the fasting,” he told Arab News.
“Despite our situation now, despite everything, as long as we’re alive, we will observe Ramadan. We’ll try to observe it well, without missing anything.”
