Report: Millions of children suffering over Trump aid cuts

Millions of children around the world have been affected by the sweeping cuts ordered by United States President Donald Trump.

The children are grappling with hardship in one form or other – war, crime, global warming, poverty, disease, and more.

Five-year-old Ahmad, who has a spinal malformation, cannot hold his torso upright and is paralysed from the waist down.

The boy was receiving physiotherapy sessions from Handicap International “to strengthen his upper limbs and enable him, later on, to walk with crutches,” said his father, Mahmud Abdulrahman, a 30-year-old day labourer.

Abdulrahman said the non-governmental organisation was also due to provide orthotics and prosthetics to straighten Ahmad’s lower limbs – none of which he could afford on his meagre salary.

The Wehdat Rehabilitation Centre they attended in Jordan’s capital Amman was one of the first victims of Trump’s aid cuts.

More than 600 patients found themselves deprived of care overnight, AFP reported.

Prosthetics already specially designed for around 30 children, as well as wheelchairs, could not be delivered to them, on Washington’s orders.

“The movement that was taught will be forgotten,” said Dr Abdullah Hmoud, a physiotherapist who worked at the centre, describing the potential losses as “catastrophic”.

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When he realised he would no longer see his physiotherapist, “Ahmad stopped eating for three days. He didn’t want to get up,” said his father.

With the closure of his rehabilitation centre, “I feel like they want to kill me,” the boy said in a hushed voice.

Ahmad’s story is one among many in a wave of horror accounts surfacing from the humanitarian sector since the United States said it was cutting 83 percent of its aid.

USAID – which the Trump administration has dismantled – had supported 42 percent of all aid distributed globally, with a $42.8 billion budget.

At a refugee camp in Bangladesh, home to a million Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar, half of them children, Save the Children has been forced to ration food.

In Mozambique, Solidarites International had to shut down a programme providing food and water to internally displaced people, including tens of thousands of children.

In Malawi, similar numbers will no longer receive free school meals, according to another NGO which requested anonymity for fear of United States reprisals.

Without food, many children will drop out of school – all the more galling, the NGO said, as millions of meals are reportedly left to rot in warehouses due to the U.S. decision.

“It’s like the rug is being pulled out from under their feet,” said one staff member.

Malnutrition already affects 150 million children under five, and the numbers could surge.

“Millions of additional children will suffer stunted growth” and impaired brain capacity, said Kevin Goldberg, director of Solidarites International.

In another blow to children, the United States is expected to drastically reduce funding for vaccination programmes in poor countries.

The Star