Guest contributor
Harry Myo Lin
“We relied on those USAID-funded kits to treat our villagers when they were sick or injured. Now we have nothing left to give them,” says a volunteer medic in Sagaing, a region ravaged by conflict and recently by natural disaster.
His words reflect a growing anguish across Myanmar. From war-torn central heartlands to refugee camps beyond its borders, people who once had a lifeline of support feel it slipping away.
The United States’ abrupt foreign aid cuts – a decision made in Washington by President Trump in January 2025 – are rippling through Myanmar’s communities with devastating effect. This is not a distant policy matter; it is an unfolding human tragedy of hunger, lost hope, and reversed progress.
A lifeline withdrawn: Hunger, homelessness and health crises
In Myanmar’s displacement camps and villages, U.S.-funded aid was often the thin line between survival and catastrophe. Now that line has frayed.
Over one million vulnerable people in Myanmar are seeing their food assistance completely cut due to funding shortfalls. Aid groups warn that 19 million people – about 35 percent of the population – will need food, healthcare, or protection this year, a number now poised to grow.
In one camp, aid workers report families regularly going days without food after essential food aid was lost. “I have 5 children… I always struggle to manage with the ration we receive… but we won’t have that facility also,” one mother of five said, describing how even a modest home-gardening program that improved her children’s nutrition has now vanished.
The World Food Programme had even announced plans to halve rations for Rohingya refugees – a population entirely dependent on aid – until an international outcry pushed the U.S. to approve an emergency $73 million USD to avert immediate famine. But that temporary reprieve is cold comfort within Myanmar, where the remaining cuts still threaten vital services nationwide.
Healthcare, too, is in free fall. Clinics and hospitals once supported by foreign assistance are downsizing or closing. Closure of medical facilities means 10,000 people may be deprived of hepatitis treatments, 19,000 children could lose life-saving malnutrition care, and 40,000 pregnant women could lose access to prenatal checkups.
A doctor working covertly in a resistance-run clinic in Sagaing Region noted that basic medicines and trauma kits have dried up since U.S. funds stopped, just as conflict casualties mount.
Then came nature’s onslaught: a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar on March 28, killing nearly 4,000 people and flattening homes, hospitals, monasteries, and over 1,000 schools.
Over 207,000 people were displaced from their homes overnight, joining the ranks of an existing humanitarian catastrophe. Yet as families in Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay regions sifted through rubble in search of loved ones, the promised international relief largely failed to materialise.
The contrast to other disasters is stark. When earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria in 2023, the U.S. pledged $185 million USD and sent hundreds of responders. For Myanmar’s quake, the U.S. initially offered a mere $2 million USD and dispatched just a few USAID staffers, who, in a cruel twist, were told days later their jobs would soon be terminated as part of the aid shutdown.
Two months after the quake, “the United States is essentially nowhere to be found. Innocent people are paying the price – especially women and girls,” observed an international humanitarian aid group.
Camps of quake survivors in Mandalay’s outskirts still lack sufficient tents, clean water, or medical services. The U.N.’s emergency appeal for the Myanmar earthquake is barely 22 percent funded.
Civil society on the brink: The impact on women and children
The aid cuts have not only sparked a humanitarian freefall; they are also choking the grassroots organisations and civil society networks that hold Myanmar’s social fabric together. Nowhere is this more evident than in the collapse of education initiatives and community programs that were a rare beacon of hope since the 2021 military coup.
One striking example is the abrupt termination of a U.S.-backed scholarship scheme that had allowed thousands of Myanmar youths to study abroad or online.
Along with roughly 1,000 other students, a young woman was sent an email in early 2025 informing her that the program was cancelled. “I feel shocked and so hopeless. If we have to go back to our country… We will be lost again,” she said.
At home, basic education for children in conflict zones is also under threat. Many underground or volunteer-run schools relied on modest grants for teacher stipends and learning materials – until those grants were frozen.
“We had 200 children studying in our community school. Now we’re down to 50, teaching out of a half-burnt house with no supplies,” a teacher in Magway told me.
A nationwide legal aid network that once defended political prisoners and documented atrocities has scaled back its offices, after U.S. democracy-promotion funds – $45 million USD dedicated to independent media, human rights, and the rule of law – were wiped out.
The most heartbreaking impact may be on women and girls, who have been disproportionately hit by both the conflict and the aid retreat. Women-led community organisations – often the first responders in crises – are now themselves on life support.
The sudden termination of $259 million USD in U.S. assistance has left women and girls “exposed and at risk” in what has been called Myanmar’s “polycrisis.” A $3.8 million dollar U.S. grant earmarked to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence was cancelled outright.
“We had a safe house for abused women in our township – the only one. We had to close it last month,” confides an activist. “When the funding stopped, we couldn’t pay rent or staff. We told women seeking refuge: ‘We have no choice but to shut our doors’.”
‘Do not abandon us’: A call for re-engagement and solidarity
In the Rohingya refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – where U.S. humanitarian assistance literally kept people alive – the sentiment is equally despairing.
Eighty-four per cent of refugee families surveyed said the aid cuts have directly hurt them. Parents report having to cut meals and watch their children cry from hunger. Some fear that they will be forgotten and left with no option but dangerous choices, like human trafficking or even returning to the homeland that committed genocide against them.
One camp resident, age 28, issued a plea aimed straight at the U.S.: “I urge the people of America to rise up against decisions that negatively impact people around the world… If these actions continue, America risks being remembered as the country responsible for the suffering and death of displaced and refugee populations globally.”
The aid cuts have dealt a “devastating blow” to Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement and civil society, and they “serve as a gift to the Myanmar military and its authoritarian allies,” human rights analysts warn.
As U.S. support recedes, Beijing and Moscow are more than happy to fill the void with influence and aid of their own, bolstering the very forces of oppression that Myanmar’s people have struggled so hard to resist.
Abandoning Myanmar now doesn’t save money in the long run – it feeds a cycle of instability, displacement, and human suffering that will ultimately demand greater international intervention down the road.
As one 30-year-old aid volunteer put it, the suspension has “created fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness… making [people] feel abandoned and forgotten by the international community.”
Sources: The opinions expressed are based on reports and surveys by PAEMA (Protecting At-Risk Ethnic Minorities Advocacy), Women’s Refugee Commission, Amnesty International Human Rights Myanmar and first-hand testimonies collected from aid workers and survivors in Myanmar’s Sagaing, Mandalay, and Magway Regions.
Harry Myo Lin is a Myanmar expert based in Austria with extensive experience across Myanmar and Asia, specialising in peacebuilding, International Relations, interreligious dialogue, and promoting freedom of religion and belief.
DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that does not reflect DVB editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]
