Death, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking: Fallout From U.S. Aid Withdrawal Hits the World's Most Fragile Locations [View all]

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Death, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking: Fallout From U.S. Aid Withdrawal Hits the World’s Most Fragile Locations

Exclusive State Department records show: As the Trump administration abandons its humanitarian commitments, diplomats are reporting that the cuts have led to violence and instability while undermining anti-terrorism initiatives.

by Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester
May 28, 2025, 2:45 p.m.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-usaid-malawi-state-department-crime-sexual-violence-trafficking

American diplomats in at least two countries have recently delivered internal reports to Washington that reflect a grim new reality taking hold abroad: The Trump administration’s sudden withdrawal of foreign aid is bringing about the violence and chaos that many had warned would come.

The vacuum left after the U.S. abandoned its humanitarian commitments has destabilized some of the most fragile locations in the world and thrown refugee camps further into unrest, according to State Department correspondence and notes obtained by ProPublica.

The assessments are not just predictions about the future but detailed accounts of what has already occurred, making them among the first such reports from inside the Trump administration to surface publicly — though experts suspect they will not be the last. The diplomats warned in their correspondence that stopping aid may undermine efforts to combat terrorism.

In the southeastern African country of Malawi, U.S. funding cuts to the United Nations’ World Food Programme have “yielded a sharp increase in criminality, sexual violence, and instances of human trafficking” within a large refugee camp, U.S. embassy officials told the State Department in late April. The world’s largest humanitarian food provider, the WFP projects a 40% decrease in funding compared to last year and has been forced to reduce food rations in Malawi’s sprawling Dzaleka refugee camp by a third.