Latest US cuts to emergency food schemes ‘a death sentence’ for millions, UN warns

GENEVA — The World Food Programme said that the Trump administration had axed funding for life-saving schemes in 14 impoverished countries — despite previously pledging to spare vital aid.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the Trump administration’s fresh cuts to emergency food schemes will amount to “a death sentence” for millions of starving people.

The UN organization, which is the world’s largest provider of food relief, pleaded with the US to reverse its decision to end funding for life-saving schemes in impoverished and war-torn countries, after it appeared to go back on a previous pledge to spare emergency food aid.

The WFP said it was “deeply concerned” after the US administration notified it that it had ended funding for emergency food assistance in 14 countries.

“If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” the program wrote on X. “We are in contact with the US administration to seek clarification and to urge for continued support for these life-saving programs.”

It also thanked the US and other donors for previous contributions.

News of the latest cuts, which appear to extend to schemes providing vital aid that had so far been allowed to continue, comes a month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration had finished its purge of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after slashing its provision by 83%.

Rubio added that remaining aid programs would now fall under the remit of the State Department.

Upon taking office in January, president Donald Trump announced he was freezing foreign aid and dismissed hundreds of USAID employees. The USAID website was subsequently taken offline.

Tech billionaire and core Trump ally Elon Musk, who has led efforts to slash federal programs and departments with little to no oversight, has previously labeled the agency a “criminal organization” that should “die”. He has provided no evidence to support his claims, which have been vigorously denied by the agency and those involved with its work.

Euronews has contacted the US Department of State and the WFP for comment.

Syria, which is facing deep poverty and hunger following a 13-year civil war, has lost some $230 million (€210 million) in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups in recent days, according to a State Department document obtained by the Associated Press.

According to the report, the largest scheme cut was a $111 million (€101 million) programme providing bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people.

The news agency also cited a UN worker saying that US aid to WFP food programmes across war-torn Yemen, which is battling one of the world’s most acute humanitarian disasters, has also been terminated.

Key relief schemes in Somalia, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe have also been hit, including schemes providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, a US official told the news agency.

Some $560 million (€512 million) in humanitarian funding to Afghanistan has been terminated, affecting the provision of emergency food aid and drinking water. Programs to save severely malnourished babies, vital medical care, and emergency mental health treatment for survivors of sexual and physical violence in the country were also cut.

The administration has pulled funding for a program to send young Afghan women overseas to study due to the Taliban government’s prohibitions on women’s education. A source on the program told AP that as a result, young women on this scheme will be forced to return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger.

The Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women’s rights since returning to power in 2021.

The latest cuts come after the WFP said last week that supplies for hot meals in Gaza would last a maximum of two weeks, while all the organization’s bakeries had been shuttered due to a lack of flour and food. It added that it was distributing its final food parcels. — Euronews