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world food program
Insiders Say Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Causing 'Violence and Chaos' in Fragile Nations
"It is devastating, but it's not surprising," said one former senior State Department official. "It's all what people in the national security community have predicted."
May 28, 2025
U.S. State Department officials in at least two countries have recently warned that the Trump administration's sudden foreign aid cutoff is fueling "violence and chaos" in some of the world's most vulnerable nations, according to a report published Wednesday.
Internal State Department communications viewed by
ProPublicarevealed that U.S. Embassy officials in the southeastern African nation of Malawi sounded the alarm on cuts to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), which have "yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking" in the Dzaleka refugee camp.
Meanwhile, dramatically reduced U.S. funding to feed refugees in Kenya has sparked violent protests and other incidents, including the trampling death of a pregnant woman during a stampede for food in which police opened fire on desperately hungry people.
"In Kenya, for example, the WFP will cut its rations in June down to 28% — or less than 600 calories a day per person — a low never seen before...The WFP’s standard minimum for adults is 2,100 calories per day." Just unbelievable suffering as U.S. withdraws foreign aid.
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— Lisa Song (@lisalsong.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 1:15 PM
This, as President Donald Trump's administration—spearheaded by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto leader, Elon Musk—has taken a wrecking ball approach to vital offices and programs including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where contracts for programs including those that fed and provided healthcare for millions of people and fought diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS have been slashed by up to 90%.
Republicans have attempted to justify the cuts under the guise of tackling the staggering U.S. national debt, even as they push a massive tax cut that would disproportionately benefit the ultrarich and corporations while adding trillions of dollars to the deficit, according to a nonpartisan congressional committee.
Although a federal judge ruled in March that Musk's moves to shutter USAID were likely unconstitutional and ordered a halt to the effort, much damage has already been done.
"It is devastating, but it's not surprising," Eric Schwartz, a former State Department assistant secretary and National Security Council member, told ProPublica. "It's all what people in the national security community have predicted."
"I struggle for adjectives to adequately describe the horror that this administration has visited on the world," Schwartz added. "It keeps me up at night."
It is unclear if any of the cables were sent via the official dissent channel set up during the administration of then-President Richard Nixon in an effort to allow State Department personnel to voice opposition to U.S. policies and practices—especially in regard to the Vietnam War—and stop leaks to the press.
The State Department responded to the ProPublica exposé in a statement saying: "It is grossly misleading to blame unrest and violence around the world on America. No one can reasonably expect the United States to be equipped to feed every person on Earth or be responsible for providing medication for every living human."
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed during a congressional hearing that "no one has died" due to USAID cuts, an assertion refuted by Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who displayed photos and harrowing stories of people who have, in fact, died since funding for vital programs was slashed or eliminated.
"It's clear that people are dying because U.S. aid was suspended and then reduced. But it's difficult to come up with a precise death toll that can be tied directly to Trump administration policies," according to a Washington Post analysis by Glenn Kessler published on Tuesday. "The death certificates, after all, aren't marked, 'Due to lack of funding by U.S. government.'"
Last month, the international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said that there will be "more preventable deaths and untold suffering around the world" due to the Trump administration.
"These sudden cuts by the Trump administration are a human-made disaster for the millions of people struggling to survive amid wars, disease outbreaks, and other emergencies," Avril Benoît, who heads the U.S. branch of MSF, said last month.
"We are living off the fumes of what was delivered in late 2024 or early 2025."
On the ground in Kenya, WFP country director Lauren Landis told ProPublica that her organization is cutting daily aid rations to less than 600 calories per person—far less than the standard minimum 2,100 calories per day under agency guidelines.
"We are living off the fumes of what was delivered in late 2024 or early 2025," Landis said, describing children who look like "walking skeletons" due to severe malnutrition.
Meanwhile, enough food to feed more than 1 million people in some of the world's most fragile places through most of the summer is moldering in storage as USAID funds run dry and workers are laid off.
This,
warned WFP last month, "could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation."
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Head of US-Backed Gaza Aid Foundation Resigns, Saying Mission Violates 'Humanitarian Principles'
"I urge Israel to significantly expand the provision of aid through all mechanisms," said Jake Wood.
May 26, 2025
A day before a U.S.- and Israel-backed plan to distribute aid in Gaza was set to take effect over the objections of aid agencies that have long served Palestinians in the enclave, the head of the operation announced Sunday that he was resigning over concerns that the mission would violate basic "humanitarian principles."
Jake Wood, a former U.S. marine and co-founder of the disaster relief group Team Rubicon, said in a statement that he had initially thought the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would be able to execute a "pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion [of aid], and complement the work of longstanding [nongovernmental organizations] in Gaza."
But the Israel-initiated plan would include working with private contractors, including one run by a former CIA official, to distribute food not across Gaza but in the southern part of the enclave that would be under the control of Israel.
Since the foundation's establishment was announced, humanitarian workers, including experts at the United Nations, have warned that the plan would endanger Palestinians who would be forced to travel on foot to just four distribution points and carry packages of humanitarian aid including food and hygienic supplies back to their families.
"How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20kg [44 pounds] back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometers away?" said Jonathan Crickx, chief of communication for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), earlier this month. "The most vulnerable people, including the elderly, people with disabilities, the sick and wounded, and orphans, will face huge challenges to access aid."
Wood evidently arrived at the same question as the day distribution would begin—Monday—drew near, while humanitarian groups and food insecurity experts warned that famine was spreading across Gaza due to Israel's total blockade on aid that began in March near the end of a brief cease-fire.
"It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon," said Wood in a statement announcing his resignation. "I urge Israel to significantly expand the provision of aid through all mechanisms, and I urge all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination."
"It is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon."
Having served in Afghanistan, said Hamid Bendaas of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, "I'm sure [Wood is] no stranger to diabolical missions. He had to interface with the Israelis for a month and resigned fundamentally as a conscientious objector."
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation released a statement saying the group's plan set to begin Monday would move forward, "reaching over 1 million Palestinians by the end of the week."
The foundation also suggested Wood had joined the ranks of critics "who benefit from the status quo" and who "have been more focused on tearing this apart than on getting aid in, afraid that new, creative solutions to intractable problems might actually succeed."
United Nations experts have said that in addition to putting Palestinians in harm's way, the plan inherently includes further mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza—about 90% of whom have already been displaced since Israel began bombarding the enclave in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said earlier this month that the plan is "at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organization."
Wood announced his resignation a day after World Food Program (WFP) executive director Cindy McCain rejected Israel's persistent claims that food aid is not reaching Palestinians in Gaza because Hamas is diverting and stealing deliveries.
"Listen, these people are desperate, and they see a World Food Program truck coming in, and they run for it," said McCain. "This doesn't have anything to do with Hamas or any kind of organized crime, or anything. It has simply to do with the fact these people are starving to death."
McCain repeated her call for the international community to put "pressure" on Israel to end its blockade, warning that 500,000 people in Gaza are now "extremely food insecure" and at risk of famine.
More than 9,000 children have been treated for malnutrition at Gaza's hospitals this year, even as healthcare workers struggle to provide care amid relentless bombings and a lack of medical equipment and medications. Dozens of children have starved to death in recent days, The Guardianreported.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli humanitarian unit, said Saturday that 388 trucks had entered Gaza over the past week—the first aid to arrive since March 2.
That number still falls far short of the 500-600 aid trucks that groups say must enter the enclave every day to provide people with enough food, water, and other essentials—the same amount that served people in Gaza before October 2023.
"We are on the back of 11 weeks of nothing entering the Gaza Strip, no food, no medicines for 11 weeks, nothing apart from bombs," said James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF. "And so today, a week after lifesaving aid was finally allowed into Gaza again, the scale of that aid is painfully inadequate. It looks like a token that appears more like cynical optics than any real attempt to tackle the soaring hunger crisis among children and civilians in Gaza."
Amid the man-made starvation crisis, Israel has intensified attacks on Gaza in recent days, killing at least 46 people on Monday including more than 30 in an overnight bombing of a shelter.
On Sunday, Dr. Tom Potokar, a British surgeon, issued his latest call for Western countries including the U.S. and U.K. to "stop being complicit in this ongoing slaughter and starvation."
"I want to talk about the political class," said Potokar. "They appear on the news shows, give interviews, and try to justify what is happening, sitting in offices safe and sound, well-fed, and surrounded by all the luxuries of modern life. They have no idea how dangerous their words are. They've never been here, they've never seen with their own eyes what is going on, heard the screams, smelled the rotting flesh, shuddered from the constant bombardment. Perhaps if they spent not 20 months, not even one month, but just one day here, they would have the courage and the humanity to speak the truth, to stand up, like so many of us citizens of the world, and use their power to bring this to an end."
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UN Chief Demands 'Lifesaving Aid for the Long-Suffering People of Gaza'
He also took aim at Israel's aid plan, saying that "we will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality."
May 23, 2025
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday stressed the dire need for a major influx of "lifesaving aid for the long-suffering people of Gaza," where Palestinians are dying from not only U.S.-backed Israeli bombings but also malnutrition and lack of medicine.
"Palestinians in Gaza are enduring what may be the cruelest phase of this cruel conflict," Guterres told reporters. "For nearly 80 days, Israel blocked the entry of lifesaving international aid. As the world's leading hunger assessment found, the entire population of Gaza is facing the risk of famine. Families are being starved and denied the very basics. All with the world watching in real time."
"Israel has clear obligations under international humanitarian law," he noted. "It must treat civilians humanely, with respect for their inherent dignity. It must not forcibly transport, deport, or displace the civilian population of an occupied territory. And as the occupying power, it must agree to allow and facilitate the aid that is needed."
"Without rapid, reliable, safe, and sustained aid access, more people will die—and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound."
In March, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, then ditched a fragile cease-fire with Hamas, which governed the coastal enclave for nearly two decades. In recent days, Israeli officials have finally allowed "a trickle of aid" into the territory, Guterres acknowledged, explaining that while almost 400 trucks were cleared for entry through the Karem Abu Salem crossing, supplies from only 115 trucks have been able to be collected "and nothing has reached the besieged north."
In a Friday statement, the U.N.'s World Food Program announced that 15 of its trucks transporting critical food supplies "were looted late last night in southern Gaza, while en route to WFP-supported bakeries."
"Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity," WFP said. "We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the cease-fire."
"WFP cannot safely operate under a distribution system that limits the number of bakeries and sites where Gaza's population can access food," the program added. "WFP and its partners must also be allowed to distribute wheat flour and food parcels directly to families—the most effective way to prevent widespread starvation."
Guterres similarly emphasized that "all the aid authorized until now amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required," and called out "staggering" obstacles imposed by Israeli officials, from "strict quotas" on goods the U.N. distributes to prohibitions on "other essentials—including fuel, shelter, cooking gas, and water purification supplies."
He said that without safety and security mitigation measures for U.N. convoys, "and in the absence of the rule of law and a desperate population after months of blockade, and totally insufficient supply entering, the risk of security incidents and looting remains high. Meanwhile, the Israeli military offensive is intensifying with atrocious levels of death and destruction."
Due to Israeli military actions, "four-fifths of the territory of Gaza is a no-go zone" for the enclave's Palestinian residents," Guterres noted. "And so, beyond questions about the particular number of trucks at any particular moment, it is important to stay fixed on the big picture. And the big picture is that without rapid, reliable, safe, and sustained aid access, more people will die—and the long-term consequences on the entire population will be profound."
Already, Gaza officials put the death toll at 53,822 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, though thousands more are presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble.
The U.N. chief also took aim at Israel's U.S.-supported aid plan, saying that "we will not take part in any scheme that fails to respect international law and the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence, and neutrality."
As Reutersreported Friday:
Israel has allowed aid deliveries by the U.N. and other aid groups to briefly resume until a new U.S.-backed distribution model—run by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—is up and running by the end of the month...
Israel said its blockade had been aimed in part at stopping Palestinian militants Hamas from diverting and seizing aid supplies. Hamas has denied stealing aid. The GHF plan involves using private security contractors to transport aid to so-called secure hubs for distribution by civilian humanitarian teams.
"The United Nations and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound five-stage plan—supported by member states—to get aid to a desperate population," Guterres highlighted. "We have the personnel, the distribution networks, the systems, and community relationships in place to act. The supplies—160,000 pallets, enough to fill nearly 9,000 trucks—are waiting."
In addition to demanding "full humanitarian access," the U.N. leader reiterated his call for "the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages" and a "permanent cease-fire" in Gaza.
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