Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Threaten Refugees’ Survival: ‘People Will Die’
New York TimesMAR 12
UN Warns Rohingya Refugee Services Face Collapse Amid Funding Crisis
Above: People wait to collect aid boxes at a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on May 27, 2025. Image copyright: Valeria Mongelli/Anadolu/Getty Images
The Spin
Narrative A
These warnings are a last resort cry of desperation, as global aid cuts, particularly from major donors like the U.S., have been crushing refugee programs for months. From Bangladesh and South Sudan to Burkina Faso and Haiti, millions of lives are now at risk if world powers — which historically could always be relied upon — don't reverse course.
Narrative B
These U.N. relief campaigns don't actually help the countries and people they claim to. USAID, for example, has long been used to fund dirty espionage operations rather than to feed or house refugees. Residents from these countries know this, and until the Western powers in charge clean up this rotten system, no one should support the U.N.'s ineffective aid programs.
Cynical narrative
There's a much more dehumanizing side to U.N. aid programs beyond simple underfunding and efficacy problems. Rohingyas have been forced to sign up for so-called "Smart Cards," which use biometric data to track refugees, and without which they're not allowed to access food. Without adequate explanations of what these cards are, refugees are treated like guinea pigs in this new surveillance experiment.
Limited Coverage
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