Malnutrition at Refugee Camp in Kenya after U.S. Reduction

Hundreds of thousands of people are “slowly starving” in Kenyan refugee camps after reducing the US financing reduced food to the lowest conditions, the United Nations official said.

The impact is very visible in the Hospital in a wide camp of Kakum northwest of the Eastern African nation. It houses approximately 300,000 refugees who fled in the section in Africa and the Middle East.

Prisoners Fill the House with 30 beds at Amusait Kakuma hospital, look slightly at visitors when they receive treatment from severe acute malnutrition.

One child, Ellen, is barely moving. Parts of her skin are wrinkled and peel off, leaving angry spots of red – the result of malnutrition, the doctor tells the BBC.

Through the passage lies the nine -month -old James baby, the eighth child Agnes Avila, refugees from Northern Uganda.

“Food is not enough, my kids eat only once a day. If there is no food, what do you feed them?” she asks.

James, Ellen and thousands of other refugees in Kakum depend on the UN World Food Program (WFP) for vital nutrition.

But the agency had to dramatically reduce its operations in many countries after President Donald Trump has announced great abbreviations of US foreign aid programs earlier this year as part of his policy “America First”.

The US has provided about 70% of WFP operations in Kenya.

WFP claims that as a result of the reducing the agency had to reduce refugee rations to 30% of the minimum recommended amount that a person should eat to stay healthy.

“If we have a prolonged situation, if it is what we can manage, then mostly we have a slowly hungry population,” says Felix Okech, the head of the WFP refugee operation in Kenya.

Outside the Cocum Food Center, the sun hits the dry, dusty groups and security officers control the refugee queues.

They are led to the center of the holding and then to the check. The help workers scan the identical refugee cards and take fingerprints before taking them to collect their rations.

Mucunova beat her moms, the mother of two, brought Jerikan to collect culinary oils, as well as sacks for lentils and rice.

“I am grateful that I got this small (food), but this is not enough,” says a 51-year-old guy who arrived at the camp 13 years ago from Southern Kiva, a region affected by the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Mistress Mom says that the fugitives were “ate well” – three meals a day. But now, when the rations make up 30% of the usual amount, the food she was given is not enough to hold on one month, and two for which she was asked to stretch her.

It was also influenced by another victim of the reduction – remittances.

By this year, the UN has given about $ 4 million (3 million pounds) cash directly to refugees in Kenya’s camps every month to allow families to buy basic materials.

Mistress with diabetics used cash to buy food as vegetables that were more suitable for her diet than cereals that distributed at the distribution center.

Now she is forced to eat everything that is.

She also used the money to start a vegetable garden and rear chicken and ducks she sold to other refugees on the market.

But the termination of remittances, local, known as “Bamba Chakula”, meant that the market was faced with the collapse.

Traders such as Badaba Ibrahim, who is from the Nuba Garn in Sudan, are no longer able to expand the credit lines in refugees.

A 42-year-old guy manages a retailer at a local shopping center. He says his clients who are now unable to buy food, sometimes camps in his store all day, asking for help.

“They will tell you,” My children haven’t eaten all day, “Mr. Ibrahim says.

Elsewhere in the Kakum camp, 28-year-old Agnes Livio serves food for his five young sons.

They live in a cabin that is approximately 2 m (6 feet 6 inches) per 2 m made of corrugated iron sheets.

Ms. Libio falls on one big plate for everyone to share. This is the first food of the family a day – in 1400.

“We used to get porridge for breakfast, but no more. So, children need to wait for the second half to go first food,” says Ms. Libio, who escaped from South Sudan.

Returning to the Amusait hospital, doctors feed a number of malfunctions through pipes.

Three toddlers and their mothers are thrown back – back into society where food is small and conditions deteriorate.

And the prospect of more financing is not very promising, and if everything does not change over the next two months, refugees look at hunger, August come.

“This is a really difficult situation,” Mr. Okak admits.

“We have some signals from one -of -the -one donors about supporting this monetary component.

“But remember that very good and generous US provides more than 70% – so if you still lack 70% … These prospects are not good.”