{"id":16252,"date":"2025-04-20T00:22:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T07:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16252"},"modified":"2025-04-22T00:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T07:50:10","slug":"trumps-aid-cuts-hit-the-hungry-in-a-city-of-shellfire-and-starvation-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=16252","title":{"rendered":"“Trump\u2019s Aid Cuts Hit the Hungry in a City of Shellfire and Starvation”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The stark consequences of the rollback are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has combined with a staggering humanitarian catastrophe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Declan Walsh<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographs and Video by\u00a0Ivor Prickett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday April 20, 2025, Front Page cover story<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D<\/em>eclan and Ivor visited five soup kitchens across Khartoum to document the effects of American aid cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
In the recently recaptured area of Jereif West in Khartoum, Sudan, Khadija Musa tried to comfort her severely malnourished daughter Fatima.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The stark consequences of the rollback are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has combined with a staggering humanitarian catastrophe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The children died one after the other. Twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan\u2019s war-ravaged capital, Khartoum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abdo, an 18-month-old boy, had been rushed to a clinic by his mother as he was dying. His ribs protruded from his withered body. The next day, a doctor laid him out on a blanket with a teddy bear motif, his eyes closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the other 11 children, Abdo starved to death in the weeks after President Trump froze all U.S. foreign assistance, said local aid workers and a doctor. American-funded soup kitchens in Sudan, including the one near Abdo\u2019s house, had been the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bombs were falling. Gunfire was everywhere. Then, as the American money dried up, hundreds of soup kitchens closed in a matter of days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was catastrophic,\u201d said Duaa Tariq, an aid worker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stark consequences of Mr. Trump\u2019s slashing of U.S. aid<\/a> are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has set off a staggering humanitarian catastrophe and left 25 million people \u2014 more than half of the country\u2019s population \u2014 acutely hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
In Jereif West, two days after Sudan\u2019s military and allied militias drove the Rapid Support Forces from the area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Hungry
Sitalbanat Mohammed holding her malnourished grandson Murtada Khalid, 20 months old, as she waited to receive food at a soup kitchen run by Duaa Tariq in Jereif West.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Women
Women lining up to receive food at the soup kitchen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sudan\u2019s civil war, now in its third year, is the world\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis in decades<\/a>, aid groups say. Famine is spreading rapidly, with some resorting to eating leaves and grass. About 400,000 people were scattered and hundreds killed in Darfur in the past week alone, as paramilitary fighters overran the country\u2019s largest camp for displaced people, the United Nations said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the United States gave $830 million in emergency aid, helping 4.4 million Sudanese, the United Nations estimates. That was far more aid than any other country provided. But after Mr. Trump halted that lifeline in January by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the effect in Khartoum was devastating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within days, over 300 soup kitchens run by Emergency Response Rooms, a network of democracy activists turned volunteer aid workers, were forced to close. In Jereif West, the neighborhood where Ms. Tariq works, hungry residents roved the streets in search of food amid shelling and drone strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople shared what they could,\u201d she said. \u201cBut many went home empty-handed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any cut in aid can be deadly: More than 600,000 Sudanese people are already living in famine, and another eight million are \u201con the cliff edge,\u201d according to\u00a0a consortium of major aid groups<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A map of Khartoum and environs locating the Presidential Palace, Jereif West and the Manshia Bridge. North of the city, Omdurman, Bhahri , East Nile and Al Buluk Hospital are also shown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has said that lifesaving aid is exempt from the cuts. In an email, a State Department spokesman said that the United States was still helping four million people inside Sudan, as well as 3.8 million refugees in neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on the ground, aid groups say the flow of American money stopped for almost two months and has resumed only in fits and starts, if at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking Trump\u2019s First 100 Days \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration\u2019s previous actions on U.S.A.I.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n