The United Nations has issued a stark warning as hundreds of thousands of refugees in Kenya face severe hunger, following major funding cuts by the United States that have slashed food rations to historic lows.
Felix Okech, head of refugee operations for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Kenya, said the situation in camps like Kakuma is deteriorating rapidly: “If we have a protracted situation where this is what we can manage, then basically we have a slowly starving population.”
Kakuma refugee camp in northwestern Kenya hosts over 300,000 people—most of them fleeing conflict from across Africa and the Middle East. The impact of reduced support is painfully visible in the camp’s Amusait Hospital, where severely malnourished children lie on beds, their frail bodies struggling to survive.
Among them is baby Hellen, with wrinkled and peeling skin, and James, a nine-month-old boy whose mother, Agnes Awila from Uganda, says her children now eat just once a day. “The food is not enough,” she says. “If there’s no food, what do you feed them?”
The WFP was forced to reduce food rations to 30% of the recommended daily intake after the US government formerly the agency’s largest donor cut foreign aid under its “America First” policy. The US had contributed around 70% of WFP’s funding for Kenya.
Refugees like Mukuniwa Bililo Mami, a diabetic mother of two from the Democratic Republic of Congo, say the aid reductions have destroyed both their diets and livelihoods. She depended on monthly cash transfers to buy vegetables and raise poultry for market. Now, with the “Bamba Chakula” cash program discontinued, her business has collapsed, and she survives on basic rations ill-suited to her health needs.
“I am grateful to receive this little food, but it is not enough,” she says. “We used to eat three times a day. Now we eat once.”
The ripple effect has also hit local markets. Badaba Ibrahim, a Sudanese trader in the camp, can no longer offer credit to hungry customers. “They will tell you, ‘My children have not eaten for a full day,’” he says.
Elsewhere, South Sudanese refugee Agnes Livio shares a single afternoon meal with her five children in a cramped shelter. “We used to get porridge for breakfast but not anymore,” she explains.
At the Amusait Hospital, malnourished children are being discharged back into a community with no guarantee of food. Without urgent donor support, WFP officials warn that the camp could face mass starvation as early as August.
“There are some signals from one or two donors,” says Okech, “but with the US missing and providing more than 70% before, the prospects are not good.”
As the humanitarian crisis deepens, aid workers and camp residents alike are pleading for renewed global attention before it’s too late.
BBC