The weeds cover the baby grave of Yagana Usman. This is a painful reminder from the month after the death of a toddler twin to malnutrition. Her surviving twin fate relies in part on decisions thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C.
Usman and her family are refuge in camps for displaced people in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria, where the Boko Haram terrorist group first appeared.
Six of her 13 children, a shelter for those fleeing Boko Haram, have passed away for eight years at the Fratari camp in the town of Dikwa. Usman, 40, told CNN that her most recent loss was in March, days after the sudden halt of the US-funded nutrition program, which provided medical food packets to malnourished twins.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration quickly transformed into the realities of life and death of families like Usman, which are considered to be a group that is considered to be a life-saving, cutting support for program aid groups. Dikwa’s nutrition program was funded by the United States Organization for International Development (USAID), but received a sudden halt order during the administration’s aid freeze, according to the nonprofit that implemented Mercy Corps.
In March, UNICEF warned that important nutritional supplies for children with acute malnutrition are rapidly declining in Nigeria and Ethiopia. The agency warned that nearly 1.3 million children under five, under five, lost access to treatment this year and funds removed in disputed areas affected by the conflict, could increase the risk of death.
The impact of these funding cuts is predicted to be felt elsewhere in Africa. In August, Save the Children reported that millions of malnourished children will be affected in Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and other countries.
Last month, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) issued a similar warning, warning that funds from international donors are “depleting” and forced them to reduce food and nutrition aid to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people, particularly in northeastern Nigeria.
He added that more than 150 nutrition clinics they supported in the region are at risk of closures.
A US State Department spokesman told CNN on Wednesday that it had resumed US-funded food aid to internally displaced people and communities in Nigeria’s Borno state. Aid workers say the project has resumed at a lower capacity and has been significantly reduced as work is being implemented.
A State Department spokesperson, when asked about wider cuts to its food aid programs, said the US had recently provided $93 million to help nearly 1 million children suffering from malnutrition in 13 countries, including Kenya and South Sudan, and $52 million to WFP for emergency food aid.
“It is essential to remember that American taxpayers were not intended to bear the complete burden of caring for everyone on the planet, whether it was food, medicine or anything else.
“This administration has significantly improved the efficiency and strategic impact of its foreign aid programs, and continues to provide life-saving support around the world.”
Children under the age of five in the northeastern and northwest of Nigeria suffer from acute malnutrition, according to the Integrated Food Security Stage (IPC), an international food security agency that tracks the global hunger crisis. Of these children, approximately 1.8 million people said they face severe acute malnutrition.
“In addition, about 787,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are acutely malnourished,” the IPC report, released last year.
The Usman twin boy was among more than 55,000 children receiving medical foods in Borno before the programme ended sharply earlier this year, and before the programme suddenly ended earlier this year, according to Mercy Corps, who operated three outpatient nutrition clinics in northeastern Nigeria.
Mercy Corps said it was forced to close 42 programs earlier this year, which could reach more than 3.6 million in crisis hotspots, including Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This impact is devastating for Usman. The loss of her son has exacerbated her grief – she has already lost her triplet just three days after her birth in 2023.
“I was sick and I had no breast milk,” she recalled the short life of Triplet. “The baby died hungry because there was nothing they could afford to give them to survive.”
Usman began receiving additional food aid from WFP last year, but this month she was informed that she is no longer eligible as the agency redistributes its limited resources.
Nigeria’s WFP chief David Stevenson told CNN that agencies were forced to cut and would reduce the country’s Northern support from 1.3 million in July to 850,000 by September.
Stevenson thanked the US, WFP’s biggest donor, for a $32.5 million donation that the US Embassy in Nigeria announced on September 3, “for food and nutrition assistance to save lives in Nigeria.”
However, he warned that US contributions will only continue operating until the end of November, with less than $10 million contributions from other donors.
Stevenson said the available resources will help reopen some nutrition clinics and help provide food aid to some communities and displaced people.
Borno’s nutrition counselor Hassan Abubakar Bukar told CNN that malnourished children are a common sight that is painful. Like Usman’s baby, deaths from malnutrition are tragically common in the area.
“About every month we encounter stories like this,” he said.
“The lack of (nutrition clinic) sites in Dikwa excludes many malnourished children,” Bukar said. “Most children may die at home, as parents can’t afford (nutritional) meals.”
Usman is worried about the fate of her surviving twins who are in need of nutritional treatment at 18 months.
“I have that fear in my heart. I’m always thinking about how to get something to feed him,” she said.
Mercy Corps told CNN there is a faint hope of hope for vulnerable people. In June, two of the organization’s previously closed health centers were reopened after the US-funded projects were allowed to continue in accordance with previous stop orders.
The Trump administration previously provided US humanitarian aid overseas, as it had cancelled more than 80% of USAID programs. It later essentially shut down the agency, shifting foreign aid management under the State Department, claiming it was engaged in waste and abuse, and critics say it didn’t deliver much of the USAID legacy work.
According to Melaku Yirga, Regional Director of Africa at Mercy Corps, the nutrition centre is currently operating under an extension of the project, with existing USAID funding unfolding. However, this will continue until October, Yirga added.
Usman’s surviving twins were readmitted to the nutrition program in July and are still receiving ready-to-use medical food packets and critical care for severe malnutrition, Mercy Corps said, but the threat of further funding cuts has left the child and others ongoing treatment.
The United States provides the world’s largest portion of humanitarian aid, spending more than $54 billion since 2021 and allocated $3.8 billion to Africa last year, Jeffrey Prescott was the US ambassador for Rome’s food and agriculture until January.
“That’s less than 1% of the federal budget,” says Margaret Schuler, chief impact officer at World Vision, the Global Christian Humanitarian Organization, about America’s annual humanitarian spending.
“We really believe that foreign aid is a major investment for the US government in terms of the returns it brings,” she told CNN, citing global benefits such as the eradication of polio and progress towards reducing infectious diseases.
According to Schuler, World Vision has cut US government funds worth around $100 million.
“Like many organizations, we’ve cut programs across all parts of the world, across 20 countries. What’s a little surprising was the fact that what was considered a ‘lifesaving program’ was finished,” including programs in Mali, South Sudan and Kenya, Shuler told CNN in August.
“These were programs serving some of the most vulnerable populations around the world.”
She warned that it would be difficult to fill the funding gap.
“For some of these large food aid programs or programs that are implemented at large in the most challenging locations in the world, it’s extremely difficult to fill some of those gaps with private resources.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is trying to freeze another $4.9 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress in 2024, but the White House says overseas spending is not in line with the “American first” priorities to make the country “safeter, stronger and more prosperous.” Trump has made multifaceted efforts to cancel its foreign aid spending on both the court and Capitol Hill.
In Yirga’s view, the sudden end to US foreign aid “is at risk of reverse decades of progress, forcing families into dangerous coping strategies, stripping them of their final lifeline.”
He warned, “The world cannot afford to look away, not when a mother like Yagana (Usman) faces the unbearable risk of losing more children.”
