Inside the Trump Administrations Man-Made Hunger Crisis
On July 18, a mild, overcast night in Nairobi, Kenya, a team of President Donald Trumps top foreign aid advisers ducked into a meeting room at the Tribe Hotel, their luxury accommodations in the citys diplomatic quarter, for a private dinner.The visitors from Washington included Marcus Thornton, a former Border Patrol agent known for a series of public lawsuits against the Biden administrations COVID-19 vaccine mandate; Kenneth Jackson, a former oil executive who had done a stint in government under the first Trump administration; and Laken Rapier, whod previously managed communications for the city of Fort Worth, Texas. This year, all had been appointed to leadership roles in the U.S. Agency for International Development, the premier government humanitarian agency in the world.Five months earlier, some of the visiting aides had celebrated USAIDs destruction over cake and speeches in Washington. With that job done, theyd embarked on a world tour of half a dozen cities, including the Kenyan capital. They were granted special permission to fly business class to help ensure maximum rest and comfort, according to an internal memo. Thornton alone received authorization to expense more than $35,000 in taxpayer money for the trip. The plan was to conduct exit interviews with USAIDs top experts, who were being forced out of the agency amid the administrations stated commitment to austerity.When the U.S. embassy in Nairobi learned of the visit, officials there arranged the dinner with a goal in mind. It would be their last opportunity to explain, face-to-face, the catastrophic impact of Trumps drastic cuts to foreign aid.A top concern: the administrations failure to fund the World Food Programs operation in Kenya, where about 720,000 refugees, among the most vulnerable people on earth, relied on the organization to survive. After providing $112 million in 2024, the U.S. abruptly cut off money in January without warning, leaving the program with no time to find adequate support or import the food needed for the rest of the year.For months afterward, U.S. government and humanitarian officials warned Washington that the cutoff had led to increasingly dire circumstances. They begged Trumps political advisers, including Thornton, to renew WFPs grant and give the money it needed to avert disaster. The embassy in Nairobi sent at least eight cables to the office of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, explaining the situation on the ground and projecting mass hunger, violence and regional instability.Do you have any information about foreign aid, the State Department or the government officials leading U.S. foreign policy? If so, please reach out to Brett Murphy on Signal at +1 508-523-5195 or Anna Maria Barry-Jester on Signal at +1 408-504-8131.Those warnings went unheeded. Rubio, facing pressure from lawmakers and humanitarian groups, nevertheless publicly asserted that the agencys mass cuts had spared food programs even as the administration failed to fund WFP in Kenya behind the scenes. If its providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, youre not included in the freeze, Rubio told reporters on Feb. 4. I dont know how much more clear we can be than that.By the spring, WFP still had not received funding, ran low on supplies and would be forced to stop feeding many of Kenyas refugees. In Kakuma, the third-largest camp in the world, WFP cut rations to their lowest in history, trapping most of the 308,000 people in the camp with almost nothing to eat.Chris Alcantara/ProPublicaThey began to starve, and many mostly children died because their malnourished bodies couldnt fight off infections, ProPublica found while reporting in the camp. Mothers had to choose which of their kids to feed. Young men took to the streets in protests, some of which devolved into violent riots. Pregnant women with life-threatening anemia were so desperate for calories that they ate mud. Out of options and mortally afraid, refugees began fleeing the camp by foot and in overcramped cars, threatening a new migration crisis on the continent. They said theyd rather risk being shot or dying on the perilous route than slowly starving in Kakuma.To press the urgency of the situation in East Africa at dinner, the embassy officials enlisted Dragica Pajevic, a WFP veteran of more than two decades. Pajevic arrived at the Tribe Hotel early. She brought props. The bag slung over her shoulder held a collection of Tupperware containers with different amounts of dry rice, lentils and oil.As they ate, she placed each container on the table. The largest represented 2,100 daily calories, what humanitarians like her consider the minimum daily intake for an adult. The next container showed 840 calories. That is what a fifth of refugees in Kakuma were set to receive come August. Another third would get just over 400 calories. Then she showed an empty container. The rest almost half of the people in Kakuma would get nothing at all.Pajevic ended her presentation by relaying a truism that she said a government official in Liberia had once told her: The only difference between life and death during a famine is WFP and the U.S. government, its largest donor.The one whos not hungry cannot understand the beastly pain of hunger, Pajevic said, and what a person is willing to do just to tame that beastly pain.The response was muted, according to other people familiar with the dinner. Jackson, then USAIDs deputy administrator for management and resources, said the decision to renew WFPs grant was now with the State Department, and gave no indication he would appeal on the organizations behalf. Thornton, a foreign service officer who ascended to a leadership post under Trump, did not speak. Instead, he spent much of the meal looking at his cellphone.Over a dinner at the luxury Tribe Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, World Food Program staff demonstrated the impact of Trump administration funding cuts.The dinner plates were cleared and the visitors headed to the airport. They just took zero responsibility for this, one of the attendees said, and zero responsibility for whats going to happen.The details of this episode are drawn from accounts by six people familiar with the trip, as well as internal government records. Most people in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. This year, ProPublica, The New Yorker and other outlets have documented violence and hunger due to the aid cuts in Kenyas camps. But the scale of suffering throughout Kakuma and the string of decisions by American officials that contributed to it have not been previously reported.The camp had seen similar spikes in pediatric malnutrition in recent years, but they were tied to natural causes, such as malaria outbreaks, extreme drought or COVID-19, according to staff of the International Rescue Committee, a U.S.-based nonprofit that operates Kakumas only hospital.This was something different: an American-made hunger crisis. So far this year, community health workers have referred almost 12,000 malnourished children for immediate medical attention.What has come with Trump, Ive never experienced anything like it, said one aid worker who has been in Kakuma for decades. Its huge and brutal and traumatizing.In response to a detailed list of questions, a senior State Department official insisted that no one had died as a result of foreign aid cuts. The official also said that the U.S. still gives WFP hundreds of millions a year and the administration is shifting to investments that will better serve both the U.S. and key allies like Kenya over time. We just signed a landmark health agreement with Kenya, the official said, pointing to recent endorsements by government officials there. Thats going to transform their ability to build their domestic capacity, to take care of their populations, to improve the quality of health care in Kenya.The day of the dinner, 370 miles from the Tribe Hotel, Mary Sunday sat on a vinyl bed in the pediatric malnutrition ward of Kakumas hospital, cradling her 7-month-old baby, Santina. The name means little saint in Italian, and Mary could only pray that God would save her babys life.Slender, with close-cropped hair and arresting eyes, Sunday had rushed Santina to the hospital four days earlier after the infant developed severe diarrhea. Her husband, Juma Lotunya, had stayed behind to care for their 2-year-old, Grace.Mary Sunday and Juma Lotunya at their home in Kakuma.Devout Christians in their early 20s, the couple fled to Kakuma together from South Sudan. They considered parenthood a sacred responsibility especially Sunday, whose own mother died when she was young. As their family grew, Lotunya had hoped to start a small shop so he could afford to send their daughters to school. I had that simple dream, he said.But in June, when Santina was 6 months old, WFP cut the camps food rations. Families like theirs were allotted just a small amount of rice and lentils 630 daily caloriesper person which they were expected to make last until August. Sunday and Lotunya stretched it as long as they could, eating one small meal per day. But the food ran out before the end of June. Sunday stopped producing enough breastmilk to feed Santina, and their chubby baby began to waste away. By the time they arrived at the hospital, Santina weighed only 11 pounds. Staff noted in her charts that she was severely malnourished, her eyes sunken.Sunday watched helplessly under the clinics fluorescent lights as hospital staff pumped her baby with medicine and tried to reintroduce more calories.On the clinics walls, next to decals of butterflies, monkeys and seahorses, loomed dry-erase boards with columns of data tracking how many children and babies had died in the room this year. Sunday spoke no English, but she knew what the numbers meant: One row listed admissions to the pediatric malnutrition ward about 400 per month on average, including the highest number of edema cases, a key marker of severity, in years.Another row on the whiteboards tallied those who never left the clinic: At least 54 children have died in the hospital with complications brought on by malnutrition in 2025 alone, including a surge in the spring when families first began rationing their food because of the USAID cuts. Worldwide, this year is the first in decades that early childhood deaths will increase, the Gates Foundation recently reported. Researchers said a key factor is the cuts to foreign aid.In the hospitals courtyard, another mother, 20-year-old Nyangoap Riek, leaned against a tree with her two children at her feet and said she was considering an extreme solution. The thing I think about is committing suicide, she told ProPublica, because I heard the U.N. takes care of the kids when the parents are gone.Women line up to receive nutritional food for their babies, who are suffering from malnutrition, at the only hospital in Kakuma.Kakuma has been a sanctuary in East Africa since the United Nations and Kenyan government began accepting refugees there in 1992. People have come fleeing deadly violence in some two dozen countries mainly from South Sudan like Sunday and Lotunya but also as far away as Afghanistan. Covering an area about half the size of Manhattan, Kakuma is a loose constellation of head-high mud and thatch neighborhoods and corrugated metal slums, like a macabre oasis in a desert, stitched together by rutted motorcycle trails.Its sheer scale has drawn political figures, Olympic gold medalists and Hollywood celebrities on humanitarian visits. Movies have been made, including a documentary about the Lost Boys of Sudan, a group of unaccompanied minors escaping war and conflict. Angelina Jolie opened a school there.A high-ranking Republican-appointed diplomat from the U.S. once called Kakuma the hottest, driest land on earth, a place that is very close to the edge of Hades.We are sustaining life, she said, by helping fund the World Food Program.Women carry jerricans of water in the Kakuma Refugee Camp. Access to clean water remains a daily challenge for many residents.Newcomers are meant to stay at this reception center for only two weeks, but with no space for them in the camp, many have been living here for months or years.Boys play soccer in the camp.In the past, USAID gave WFPs global operations billions every year, including the funds to feed refugees at camps in Kenya. The aid is one end of a bargain to bring stability to the region. Countries like Kenya take in refugees from a host of other countries fleeing violence, famine or natural disasters. In exchange, the U.S., along with other wealthy nations vested in saving lives, help foot the bill for essential services. Without food, experts say, refugees would likely spill out of Kenya into other countries. Conflicts may last longer, claim more lives and create new refugees.USAID has been ubiquitous in Kakuma for so long that its a literal building block in the camp; millions of old cans of cooking oil bearing the agencys letters have been flattened and repurposed as lattice fencing.When the Trump administration froze thousands of USAID programs during a putative review of the agencys operations in January, Rubio insisted food programs would be spared.But then Rubios lieutenants failed to extend WFPs Kenya funding, blowing up the typical timetable the organization needed in order to ship food to Kakuma by summer.WFP was blindsided. The organizations leaders had received no notice ahead of the cuts and no communication about whether the Trump administration would ever renew their grant. There was zero plan, except causing pain, said one U.N. official. And that is not forgivable.Even before the second Trump administration, funding shortfalls in recent years had forced the organization to drop rations by around 20% to 40% throughout the camp. To adjust for the long term, WFP was planning to reform its model in Kenya to make sure the small minority of people with some income, like small-business owners, didnt receive food.Thousands of Refugee Families in Northwest Kenya Starved After USAID Funding CutsIn August, food rations were cut to historic lows. Almost half the Kakuma camp got nothing at all.Note: Rations and population sizes represent an Aug. 11 food distribution in Kakuma. ProPublica extrapolated the 100% ration amounts from the 20% ration. Amounts vary between distributions. Source: Documents obtained by ProPublica. Chris Alcantara/ProPublicaBut this year, WFPs leaders were forced to stretch their remaining supplies from last year. They made the drastic decision to cut rations to their lowest in Kakumas history. They also reduced distributions to once every other month instead of monthly.In August, the handouts would become even more austere, as WFP rushed to prioritize families based on need. They determined only half the population would receive food. Most people learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.Camp residents line up at a World Food Program distribution point to receive food rations.Across the world in Washington, the fate of places like Kakuma was in the hands of a select few political appointees, including Thornton, who was named the agencys deputy chief of staff on March 18. Thornton first worked beneath Peter Marocco, Rubios head of foreign assistance, and later under Jeremy Lewin, initially an Elon Musk hire. Besides Rubio, none of them were subject to Senate confirmation.As pleas poured in from government officials in Washington and abroad to restart aid operations in Africa, including WFP in Kenya, the appointees often failed to act, records and interviews show.On March 18, USAIDs political leadership invited career government aid officials from the agencys major bureaus to pitch the handful of programs they thought were most critical. It was the only time the agencys Africa bureau had an opportunity to make a full-throated case for its development programs across the continent. They had just 45 minutes to do it.During his time with the State Department under President Joe Biden, Marcus Thornton challenged the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which he says cost him his posting in the capital of Kyrgyzstan. He co-founded the group Feds for Freedom to help other federal workers sue over the mandate. Screenshot by ProPublicaIn the room was Thornton, a member of the Ben Franklin Fellowship, an organization that champions the primacy of American sovereignty. Thornton said in podcast appearances that his campaign against President Joe Bidens vaccine mandate for federal workers introduced him to a government bureaucracy that is not reflective of the values of the people that it serves and requires fear and accountability to come to heel, Mother Jones reported.As part of the meeting, Brian Frantz, acting head of USAIDs Africa bureau and a diplomat with nearly 25 years of experience, pitched Kenya as an important trade and national security partner. At one point when discussing another country, Frantz mentioned the U.S. Trade and Development Agency,using the acronym TDA. Thornton perked up, according to two attendees. Then he asked: Was TDA a reference to the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua?The USAID officials were stunned. That was the one thing he said in that meeting, one of the attendees recalled. There was just zero interest in the subject matter.In a blistering memo circulated around the agency before he was laid off in late summer, Frantz upbraided political leaders. He detailed how they had prevented lifesaving programs from coming back online by refusing to pay for services already rendered and restricting access to USAIDs payment systems. He said they had frequently changed the process for how to appeal program terminations, burying their subordinates in paperwork for months.We were given make-work to keep us spinning our wheels, another former official recalled.Months before the last-ditch appeal at the Tribe dinner, embassy staff in Nairobi had also tried unsuccessfully to get funding restored to WFP. In March, Marc Dillard, the acting U.S. ambassador, went to Kakuma for a tour of the hospital where Sunday and Santina would later check in.After seeing the stakes firsthand, Dillard signed a series of cables to Washington documenting the chaos and death in Kakuma and other camps caused by the sudden funding cuts to WFP. On May 6, the embassy wrote that declining food assistance had already contributed to several deaths and could result in escalating instability in Kenya.At one point, a group of teenagers and young men in Kakuma splintered off from a protest and set fire to WFPs tents. Kenyan police responded by shooting at them, wounding at least two, including a teenager who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the head. Ordinarily considered among the most peaceful refugee camps in Africa, Kakuma went into lockdown. Aid workers hid inside their compounds.Sexual assault, violent protests and other crimes would only increase without aid, Kenyan government officials warned the embassy, according to another cable. They predicted the cuts could destabilize one of Americas closest allies in Africa, undermining Kenyan willingness to host thousands of refugees, many of whom would likely otherwise join the illegal migration flows bound for Europe and the United States.At a roadside staging area, some of those fleeing Kakuma hired smugglers to take them the 70 miles to the South Sudan border the same country where they had escaped violence. As many as two dozen women, children and babies contorted inside cars with their belongings piled on the roof. Its hunger that chased us, one woman said through the cracked window of a car about to depart. Its hunger thats making us leave.Refugees prepare to leave the Kalobeyei settlement, an extension of the Kakuma camp, in August after running out of food. Many people, particularly those from South Sudan, returned home to the threat of violence.In mid-May, USAIDs humanitarian assistance bureau in Washington delivered a memo again requesting the political appointees approve funding for WFP Kenya. Without this additional assistance, the appeal stated, the WFP-provided food rations will reduce from normal levels of 60% to 20%, putting nearly 1 million people at risk of starvation and death and likely triggering additional insecurity within the refugee camps.Records show seven advisers in the chain of command signed off on more funding for WFP in Kenya. When the request got to Thornton, who by then had been promoted to USAIDs chief of staff, he did not. No money went through at that time. Thornton became a real road block, a former USAID official said.Thornton did not respond to a request for comment. In response to questions about episodes like this, the senior State Department official said the Office of Management and Budget, not USAID or the State Department, has ultimate authority to approve new foreign aid money. They said they worked closely with OMB to review all of the funding requests. In order to make an obligation like that, the official said, you need to have apportioned funds from OMB.When ProPublica asked about the funding delays and the State Departments explanation, OMBs communications director Rachel Cauley said in an email, Thats absolutely false. And thats not even how this process works. She did not clarify what was false.Santina declined rapidly in the days after arriving at the clinic. Hospital staff tried everything. They gave her IV fluids, put her on oxygen support and updated the diagnosis to marasmus, a severe form of malnutrition where the body starts to eat itself. Pneumonia gripped her lungs. Santinas color faded and she struggled to breathe. She became unresponsive to pain.Mary SundayCradling her baby, Sunday thought about her oldest daughter back at home. Two-year-old Grace wore a little bell around her ankle because she was prone to wandering off. Sunday thought: What will Grace eat today? Tomorrow? Will she end up here too?Just after 5 a.m. on July 21, hospital staff pronounced Santina dead.A doctor and nutrition specialist with the International Rescue Committee said Santina almost certainly would have survived if she werent malnourished. To Lotunya, the cause was clear: After starving for weeks, his wife could no longer breastfeed, which is why Santina had become so tiny and weak. That is why she died, he said.Santina was transferred to the hospitals morgue, a squat concrete building at the edge of the compound. Lotunya borrowed $10 to bury his daughter in Kakumas cemetery, just on the other side of the hospital fence.Once proud to be the mother shed grown up missing, shame washed over Sunday. I felt I wasnt mother enough, she said later, nearly in a whisper.In early August, Sunday came home after helping to harvest the sallow greens a neighbor was growing out of dry, cracked earth. In exchange, they had given her a few handfuls of the vegetable wrapped in fabric. It was the familys only food.The familys only picture of Santina is on their refugee registration. (ID number blurred by ProPublica.)The August food distribution was supposed to come any day; the camp was tense. WFPs new rankings determined that only half of Kakuma would receive food, a decision most refugees deeply opposed. Lotunya, Sunday and Grace were among those who would get nothing.Someone had stolen the roof off the familys single-room mud house, so Lotunya had used tarp and cardboard for a makeshift cover, which was disintegrating in the hot sun. Grace played on the dirt patio, the bell on her ankle chiming as she moved between her parents, clinging to their legs and crawling into their laps.Doting on her, they said, was the only way to cope with losing Santina. They have just one picture of their youngest child: a fuzzy, black-and-white image on the familys refugee registration. But, Sunday said, looking at her oldest daughter asleep on Lotunyas shoulder, I have Grace.In late September, the State Department signed an extension to WFPs Kenya operation. This year, the U.S. gave $66 million, which is 40% less than it received last year and, critically, the funds arrived nine months into the year.WFP has told refugees it plans to provide food through at least March. Even then, most families are set to receive between one-fifth and three-fifths of the recommended minimum daily calories.Sunday, Lotunya and Grace would each get the equivalent of 420 calories a day.Lotunya at home in Kakuma with his daughter, GraceThe post Inside the Trump Administrations Man-Made Hunger Crisis appeared first on ProPublica.
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