Refugees in Kenya risk 'slow starvation' as donors slash aid

• Refugees face unprecedented hunger crisis
• Child malnutrition seen rising
• End of cash handouts shutter camp businesses

NAIROBI - Since food rations were slashed at his refugee camp in Kenya three months ago, Abass Ahmed has struggled to settle his hungry children and quiet their rumbling stomachs. Life has never been so tough, he said, as swingeing U.S. aid cuts finally bite.

"I have lived in Dadaab for 30 years and this is the first time we have received no food assistance at all," said the 34-year-old Somali refugee.

"It's the worst ever that we have experienced."

His five-year-old son and daughter, who is 7, now frequently complain of nagging stomachs, but he has little to offer them.

Already, the family has stopped eating breakfast, surviving on just two thin meals a day. 

"I try to distract them with play or by giving them some milk, if we have some, but it's not easy," Ahmed, who is a teacher, told Context by phone from Dadaab camp in northeastern Kenya.  

From Kenya to Bangladesh, refugees across the world have seen their food rations slashed because of a collapse in aid funding from the United States and other Western countries.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to pursue his "America first" agenda. Other donors such as Britain, Germany and Canada have also cut their aid budgets.

As a result, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), the largest provider of global food aid, has been forced to reduce, or even stop, food assistance to millions of people fleeing war, disaster and persecution.

Mercy Juma, head of communications for WFP in Kenya, said food assistance to refugees had been shrinking since 2018 due to funding shortfalls, with the most severe reductions implemented at the end of 2024 partly due to a lack of U.S. commitments.

"The United States was our biggest donor, providing around 70% of our total budget, so the withdrawal of funding from the U.S. has had a serious impact on refugees in Kenya," said Juma. 

"People are already opting to eat one meal a day, mothers are eating less in order to feed their children, people are selling their belongings. When you reduce food, it will lead to a slow starvation." 

Rations slashed

According to the United Nations, nearly 37 million people worldwide are refugees - with 69% from just five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan and South Sudan.

Many refugees live in poverty in camps in countries that include Iran, Turkey, Uganda, Pakistan and Kenya. 

Often banned from working, they live in decrepit housing and usually lack the most basic services.

Kenya hosts nearly 860,000 refugees and asylum seekers, most of whom fled neighbouring Somalia after it descended into civil war in 1991.

Over the years, more refugees - from countries including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia - have streamed in, largely uprooted by drought and conflict.

In Dadaab - a sprawling settlement spread across semi-arid desert that is home to more than 430,000 people - refugees have few ways to earn a living as the Kenyan government forbids them from leaving the camp to work.

Some rear goats or take on informal manual labour. Others run small kiosks sewing clothes, selling camel meat and basic groceries, or charging cell phones from solar panels.

Others, like Ahmed, have jobs with foreign aid agencies as teachers, translators or health workers, earning about $100 a month - a big help but not enough to sustain a family.

They live in tarpaulin tents or shacks made of corrugated iron and branches, and for decades have relied on food rations provided by WFP and paid for by foreign donors.

Before the cuts, WFP provided 8.1 kg of rice, 1.5 kg of lentils, and 1.1 litres of vegetable oil per person each month to refugees in Dadaab, and two other refugee camps, Kakuma and Kalobeyei, in northwestern Turkana county. 

Since June, WFP has cut these rations by 60% for vulnerable groups - the pregnant, elderly and disabled -  while refugees who earn any income, like Ahmed, get no food aid at all. 

Juma said WFP was now only able to provide food to 480,000 out of the 700,000 refugees it used to support in Kenya.

"We are really worried about the long-term impacts of reduced rations," said Juma, adding that children were being taken out of school to work and there was a higher risk of malnutrition among children.

Businesses close, violent clashes

As well as slashing food, WFP has also stopped its monthly cash allowance of $5 a person, which refugees had used to buy fresh vegetables and milk to supplement their meagre rations.

Scores of small businesses in Dadaab have shut because of the resulting loss of business.

Shopkeeper Abass Issak, 45, said he was forced to close his small grocery store in July after 10 years of business, earning about $400 a month.

"I went bankrupt. Customers had no money and bought food on credit, but they couldn't pay me back. I was owed hundreds of dollars," Issak said by phone from Dadaab.

"Many shops like mine are collapsing," added Issak, who supports 28 people, including two wives, children, parents and siblings.

The cuts have also led to sometimes violent protests.

In July, at least one refugee was killed after clashes with the police at a WFP distribution centre in Kalobeyei. Government officials said an empty WFP store was torched by refugees who were angered by their slashed rations.

WFP is appealing for $220 million to provide food to refugees for the next six months, but donors have only pledged $52 million so far, said Juma.

Talks with big donors continue - but Ahmed fears refugees like him are already forgotten.

"We feel depressed and have so much anxiety," he said. "If the international community cannot help us, people will end up dying."

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths)