American diplomats in at least two countries have handed over internal reports to Washington, which reflects a dark new fact abroad: The sudden withdrawal of the Trump administration of foreign aid brings the violence and chaos that many have warned.
The vacuum that it left after the United States abandoned its humanitarian obligations to destabilize some of the most fragile sites in the world and was cast refugee camps in the turmoil, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Correspondence and the observations obtained by ProPublica.
The assessments are not just predictions about the future, but they are detailed accounts of what actually happened, which makes them among the first reports from within the Trump administration to the surface publicly – although experts suspect that they will not be the last. In their correspondence, diplomats have warned that stopping aid may undermine efforts to combat terrorism.
In a country of Malawi, southeast of Malawi, the US financing for the United Nations World Food Program “resulted in a sharp increase in crime, sexual violence and human trafficking” inside a large refugee camp. The largest human food provider in the world, the British program program Projects A 40 % decrease in financing compared to last year and forced to reduce food classes in Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi in Malawi.
To the north, the American embassy in Kenya reported that the news of funding discounts for food programs in refugee camps led to violent demonstrations, according to a cable that has not been reported previously since early May. during One protestThe police responded to the shooting and four people were wounded. Refugees also died in food distribution centers, and the cable officials, including a pregnant woman who died under a stampede. Relief workers said they expect more people to be hurt “as weak families have become increasingly desperate.”
“It is a devastating matter, but it is not surprising,” Eric Schwartz, a former assistant secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the National Security Council during the democratic departments. “All that people expect in the national security community.”
“I am facing qualities to describe the horror that this administration visited on the world,” Schwartz added. “He keeps me awake at night.”
In response to a detailed list of questions, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an email message: “It is misleading to blame the turmoil and violence around the world on America.
The spokesperson also said that a “overwhelming majority” of software programs inherited by the Trump administration, including those in Malawi and Kenya, are still active.
But the United States funds the program on an annual basis. In 2025, the Trump administration has not yet agreed to any money in any of the countries, forcing the organization to significantly reduce food programs.
In Kenya, for example, the sports food program will reduce its shares in June to 28 % – or less than 600 calories per day per person – unprecedented before. The minimum adults for adults is 2100 calories per day.
Landes said: “We live outside the fumes of what was delivered in late 2024 or early 2025.” On a recent visit to a facility that treats children with malnutrition under the age of 5, she said she had seen children “walking skeletons as I have not seen it during a decade.”
Since he took office, President Donald Trump pledge To restore safety and security around the world. Meanwhile, his administration, which works alongside the Ministry of Governmental Efficiency in Elon Musk, dismantled the United States Agency for International Development quickly, which led to the abolition of thousands of government -funded foreign aid programs that they considered to be wasting. More than 80 % of the American Agency for International Development has been completed, which paralyzed life -saving humanitarian efforts all over the world.
Musk, who did not respond to the request, said that Duji’s discounts on humanitarian aid targeted fraudulent payments for the organizations but did not contribute to the extensive deaths. “An evidence showed us at all that this is true,” he He said newly. “This is a mistake.”
For decades, the American administrations managed by both parties have witnessed humanitarian diplomacy, or “soft power”, as an effective measure of cost to help stabilize the volatile but strategic importance and provide the basic needs of people who may resort to international opponents. Experts say that these investments help prevent the regional conflict and the war that may take place between the United States “if you do not fund the Foreign Ministry completely, I need to buy more ammunition,” Jim Mattis, who was the Minister of Defense during the first administration of Trump, He said Congress In 2013 when the central leadership led us.
Food insecurity has always been closely related to regional turmoil. However, despite the promises of Foreign Minister Marco Rubio that life rescue will continue amid widespread discounts on foreign aid, the Trump administration End funding to the program For several countries. Nearly 50 % of the program’s budget came from the United States in 2024.
Since February, US officials all over the developing world have issued urgent warnings that they expected the Trump administration’s decision to suddenly cut assistance to the population who is desperate may exacerbate humanitarian crises and threaten US national security services. In one of the cables, diplomats in the Middle East reported fears that stopping aid could enable groups such as the Taliban and undermine efforts to address terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration. Officials, in other correspondence, warned of other correspondence that may “have” have been greatly underway to the stability of the transition zone “and” only the situation of ISIS. “” It can endanger American forces in the region.
Embassies in Africa provided similar messages. “We are very concerned that suddenly stopping stability that focuses on terrorism and humanitarian programs in Somalia … will immediately affect and rob the American national security services,” wrote the American embassy in Mogadisho, Somalia, in February. The officials added that the role of the American Agency for International Development in helping the army to prevent the newly liberated lands – “has been purchased at a high cost of blood and treasure” – from returning to the hands of the terrorists “indisputable and cannot be dispensed with.”
The embassy in Nigeria described how orders to stop working in supervision that we were exposed to American resources caused the risk of transferring them to criminal or terrorist groups. (The complaint of those reported to the violations in February claimed that the collected computers from the United States Agency for International Development were stolen from the health centers there.) US officials said that the Kenyan government “is facing an imminent humanitarian crisis for more than 730,000 refugees” without additional resources, where local officials struggle to confront the young man, which is a major terrorist threat, while there is also there as well Simulation of security in the country.
In early April, Jeremy Lewin – a lawyer in his late twenties without previous government experience and is currently responsible for the Ministry of Foreign Aid for Foreign Aid and the United States Agency for International Development – the end of granting linguistic programming in more than ten countries. (Amid a protest, later returned a few of them.) A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the agency was responding on behalf of Loulene.
In Kenya, the World Food Program expects the malnutrition crisis after cutting categories to the fourth normative minimum, Landes said. She is also concerned about the security of her employees, who are already traveling with police escorts, given the possibility of more protests and that they may make more incursions into the camps.
Landes said that in order for the United States to provide usual food aid to Kenya by the end of the year, it was necessary to already put a boat. This did not happen.
In recent days, refugees in South Sudan have begun in Ethiopia to a visiting government delegation from the United States not to cut food classes, according to a cable documenting the visit. Relief workers in another group of camps in North Africa reported that they expect funding by the end of May to a program that fights malnutrition for 8,600 pregnant mothers and nursing.
Although it is one of the poorest countries in the world, Malawi was a relative beacon for stability in a region that has witnessed many civil wars and turmoil in recent decades. However, in early March, officials there warned their counterparts in Washington that discounts to more than $ 300 million from the United States of America planned to provide the country with help in the year will significantly increase the “effects of the already deteriorating economy.”
At that time, 10 employees from a non -profit institution appeared funded by the United States Agency for International Development recently without warning at the US Agency’s International Development Agency offices in the capital, Lilongwe, for their unpaid wages after the freezing of the United States. The group left without an accident, and it is not clear whether it had been paid, but officials have informed that they expected countries around the world to face similar issues and closely monitoring “increasing risks to the safety and security of the embassy employees.” (Former employees of another non -profit organization in a nearby country renewed their organization “motivated by despair for non -payment,” according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)
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An hour drive from the country’s capital, Dzaleka is a previous prison that has been transferred to a refugee camp in the 1990s to house the people who flee the war in the neighboring Mozambique. In decades that followed, they link them, and fill people who run conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The camp, which was built for a contract of about 10,000, is home to more than 55,000 people.
Iradukunda Devota, a refugee from Burundi, came to Malawi when she was three years old and lived in Deceka for 23 years. It now works in Inua Advocacy, which provides legal services and preachers on behalf of refugees in the camp. She said that tension is high amid rumors that food and other aid will be cut off more. Since 2023, the Malawi government has prevented refugees from living or working outside the camp, and there was already an increase in crime and drug use after reducing food earlier this year. “This happens because people are hungry,” Divota told ProPublica. “They have no place to resort to.”
Now, the Malawi government is likely to close its borders for refugees in response to the financing and crowding crisis in Dzaleka.
Diplomats still warn of the Trump administration worse. The British program program expects the entire Dzaleka nutritional assistance in July.
The embassy told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “which can destroy host societies and refugees, target United Nations offices and cancel the wings when the pipeline is finally broken,” the embassy said to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
PROPUBLICA plans to continue covering the US International Development Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the consequences of ending US foreign aid. We want to hear from you. Continue with the reference to the correspondents of Brett Murphy at +1 508-523-5195 and Anna Maria Barry-Justter at +1 408-504-8131.
