US aid cuts to Myanmar are having catastrophic impact, UN rapporteur says

By Olivia Le Poidevin

GENEVA (Reuters) -U.S. cuts to humanitarian aid are having a crushing impact on people in Myanmar, with violence likely to spiral, Thomas Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar told a press briefing in Geneva on Monday.

Sudden cuts to food and health programs supporting people have made an already grave humanitarian situation worse, as airstrikes and violence by the military junta, which seized power in 2021, increase, Andrews said.

“The sudden chaotic withdrawal of support – principally by the U.S. government – is already having a crushing impact on the people of Myanmar,” he added.

On taking office on January 20, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on all foreign assistance pending reviews of whether aid programs conformed with his America First foreign policy.

Recently announced cuts to the World Food Programme could make current conditions even worse, Andrews stated, warning that famine is imminent in Rakhine State, in the west of the country.

People in Myanmar have also lost access to medical care, with some HIV patients unable to take their medication for the last seven weeks due to largely U.S.-funded health programmes, Andrews explained.

“This is a catastrophe that is unfolding – it is unnecessary and it is cruel,” said Andrews, who shared findings of a newly published U.N. report on the human rights situation in Myanmar with reporters in Geneva.

The U.N. special rapporteur warned that these destabilising conditions will force people into sexual exploitation, human trafficking and will increase the flow of people crossing the Myanmar border into neighbouring Bangladesh or beyond.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since early 2021, when the military ousted an elected civilian government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a protest movement that morphed into an armed rebellion against the junta across the Southeast Asian country.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin, Editing by Andrey Sychev, Ludwig Burger and Sharon Singleton)