Malnutrition in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp after US aid cuts

Hundreds of thousands of people “slowly affect” in Kenyan refugee camps after American financing reductions reduced food rations to their lowest levels of all time, a United Nations official told the BBC.

The impact is clearly visible in a hospital at the northwest Kakuma camp in the northwest of the East African nation. It houses around 300,000 refugees who fled conflicts in African and Middle East countries.

Emaciated children fill a 30 -bed room at the Hospital Amused in Kakuma, staring at the visitors in a faithful way while they receive treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

A baby, Hellen, moves barely. Parties of his skin are wrinkled and will take off, leaving angry red plates – the result of malnutrition, a doctor told the BBC.

On the other side of the aisle is a nine -month -old baby, James, the eighth child of Agnès Awila, a refugee from northern Uganda.

“Food is not enough, my children only eat once a day. If there is no food, what do you have the infants?” she asked.

James, Hellen and thousands of other refugees in Kakuma depend on the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) for vital subsistence.

But the agency had to considerably reduce its assistance operations in many countries after President Donald Trump announced scanning reductions to American foreign aid programs earlier this year, as part of its “America First” policy.

The United States had provided approximately 70% of the financing of PAM operations in Kenya.

The WFP indicates that due to the cuts, the agency had to reduce refugee rations to 30% of the minimum amount recommended that a person should eat to stay healthy.

“If we have an prolonged situation where this is what we can manage, then, basically, we have a slowly hungry population,” explains Felix Okech, chief of PAM refugee operations in Kenya.

Apart from the Kakuma Food Distribution Center, the sun beats on dry and dusty soil and security agents Manage refugee waiting queues.

They are taken to a detention center and then to a verification area. The humanitarian workers scan the identity cards of the refugees and take their fingerprints, before taking them to recover their rations.

Mukuniwa Bililo Mami, mother of two, brought a jerrycan to recover the cooking oil, as well as bags for lenses and rice.

“I am grateful to receive this little [food] But it is not enough, “explains the 51 -year -old man, who arrived in the camp 13 years ago from South Kivu, a region in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Ms. Mami says that the refugees “ate” – three meals a day. But now that rations are 30% of their usual amount, the food that has been given to it is not enough to last a month, not to mention the two for which she was invited to stretch her.

It was also affected by another victim of the cuts – cash transfers.

Until this year, the UN gave about $ 4 million (3 million pounds sterling) in cash directly to refugees in Kenya camps each month, intended to allow families to buy basic supplies.

Ms. Mami, who is diabetic, used money to buy food, such as vegetables, which were more suitable for her diet than cereals distributed in the distribution center.

Now she has to eat everything available.

She also used the money to start a vegetable patch and a chicken and rear ducks, which she sold to other refugees, on a market.

But the cessation of cash transfers, known locally as “Bamba Chakula”, said that the market faces the collapse.

Merchants like Badaba Ibrahim, which are Nuba mountains in Sudan, are no longer able to extend credit lines to refugee colleagues.

The 42 -year -old man manages a retail store in the local shopping center. He says that his customers, now unable to buy food, sometimes camp in his shop all day, begging help.

“They will tell you:” My children have not eaten for a full day “”, explains Mr. Ibrahim.

Elsewhere in the Kakuma camp, Agnes Livio, 28, serves food for her five young sons.

They live in a cabin, which is approximately 2 m (6 feet 6 inches) by 2 m based on corrugated fire leaves.

Ms. Livio serves food on a large plate so that all share them. This is the first meal of the family of the day – at 1400.

“We used to get porridge for breakfast but more. So children have to wait until the afternoon to have their first meal,” said Ms. Livio, who fled from South Sudan.

Returning to the Amuse hospital, doctors feed a number of infants suffering from malnutrition through tubes.

Three toddlers and their mothers are released – return to the community where food is rare and conditions deteriorate.

And the prospect of more funding is not very promising and unless things change over the next two months, refugees are looking at famine in August.

“It’s a really disastrous situation,” admits Mr. Okeck.

“We have signals from some or two donors on support with this cash component.

“But remember, the United States very kind and generous has provided more than 70%-so if you still miss 70% … These prospects are not good.”