Trump Abandoned South Sudan. Now They Fight To Survive. | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON — Five months after the Trump administration stripped $8 billion in U.S. overseas support from the world, a Sudanese National Army helicopter bombed a hospital, pharmacy and market in a distant village of South Sudan referred to as Old Fangak.

Situated in a deep pocket of grassy swampland shaped by floodwaters from the Nile that haven’t receded for 5 years because of local weather change, Old Fangak was house to hundreds of internally displaced South Sudanese ladies and youngsters — together with many former boy troopers — fleeing civil conflict within the area.

At least seven folks had been killed within the May bombing. Doctors Without Borders reported their medical provides had been obliterated. Refugees scattered to wherever they may discover greater or drier floor. Handmade dykes that had saved floodwaters from consuming Old Fangak fell into disrepair after which broke, washing away the makeshift houses and scant belongings of the individuals who lived within the village.

“It was a perfect storm of a humanitarian crisis,” Dan Pisegna, program director of Alaska Health Project South Sudan, informed HuffPost earlier this month. “Multiple compounding emergencies were happening at the same time.”

Since 2009, South Sudanese volunteers — and some Americans from Alaska — have created entry to wash water by drilling and sustaining boreholes, or holes dug into the bottom to entry water. Their effort is accountable for about 75% of the wells in Fangak County. It is a crucial service since most of South Sudan lacks entry to wash water, driving up mortality charges and rising the unfold of illnesses like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, brucellosis and giardiasis. AHPSS additionally teaches native ladies farm sustainably.

AHPSS has not gotten any direct funding from USAID, the impartial U.S. authorities company that till this yr had supplied help to overseas and growing nations. But over time, the small nonprofit has partnered with different humanitarian organizations that did depend on USAID — utilizing the personal cash AHPSS raised to subsidize these teams’ efforts to handle crises within the area when public grants had been restricted or a response was wanted quick.

It was a “win-win,” Pisegna mentioned.

But as quickly as he reentered workplace, President Donald Trump took an ax to authorities spending, together with USAID. The cuts decimated meals, well being, medical and different companies worldwide. Humanitarian networks that when had the power to faucet organizations like AHPSS for sure companies are actually working on shoestring budgets. When their funding dries up, smaller organizations like AHPSS are left to step up.

“We have the conflict and the flooding, but what has really exacerbated the emergency has been the general lack of funding,” Pisegna mentioned. “I think when USAID was pulled out, there was a feeling that someone might step in to fill that void. Thus far, it has not really come to fruition.”

As a end result, about two dozen folks from South Sudan and some staff from AHPSS have been doubling down on their efforts to construct and keep entry to wash water in an space that has been struck by tragedy time after time.

“The amount of sweat is insane,” mentioned David Kapla, a survivalist, bushman, and yearslong volunteer for AHPSS.

To drill water wells for hundreds of displaced folks, a 60-foot-long, 10-ton metal canoe is first transported, together with different heavy gear, by donkey cart on rocky terrain. No vehicles can journey to launch-points for the canoe as a result of there are not any roads. This November, when Kapla and his group had been putting in wells, the typical temperature was 90 levels.

By hand, they load a 1,000-pound bore rig that should be assembled within the discipline from 200 to 300 particular person items. They add 500 kilos of cement, 500 kilos of rock, and a few thousand kilos of metal. Those supplies are for elevated platforms the place gravity-fed “tap stands” can pump water for 1,500 folks per stand. A platform can maintain at the least two faucet stands, and the pumps can be utilized even when the properly is submerged in a number of toes of contaminated floodwater.

The group navigates by marshes with head-high grass and air thick with mosquitoes. Water ranges typically exceed 4 toes however ebb and circulate, forcing volunteers to pull the laden canoe by rope below a blazing solar.

The South Sudanese collaborating with AHPSS are taking over the strenuous work regardless of having little entry to meals.

“They were dropping 20 pounds in those months after the [USAID] cuts,” Kapla mentioned. “You’re talking about regional starvation, hunger, malnutrition caused simply by that cut of that aid.”

The Trump administration cuts to USAID resulted in Action Against Hunger reducing its programming in half. The World Food Program started reducing its meals distribution and proscribing rations to 50% to 70% of their authentic dimension. Save the Children Fund, a charity that gives well being screenings and coverings for illnesses, shuttered seven of its services.

Emaciated youngsters had been pressured to search on foot for open well being clinics after so many shut down within the space, AHPSS President Dr. Jack Hickel mentioned.

“They walked to their deaths,” he mentioned.

The White House didn’t instantly return a request for remark.

South Sudan is experiencing its worst cholera outbreak within the nation’s 15-year historical past, in response to the World Health Organization. The illness has killed over 1,500 in South Sudan since 2024, and there have been at the least 100,000 suspected circumstances within the nation as of October.

Hickel, who has spent 10 years serving South Sudan and a lifetime learning tropical illness and hygiene, says that quantity is probably going a low estimate.

“The ones that are really susceptible to these diarrheal diseases are the young, kids, the immunocompromised, and older people,” he mentioned. “There are a lot of infant deaths going on because of this bad water.”

The precise variety of deaths is difficult to know, in response to Damian Seal, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster Coordinator specialist for South Sudan. So most of the teams that observe, report or share public well being data have been hamstrung.

The lack of USAID funding for the area might have meant that “cholera spread more than it should have,” Seal mentioned.

“You’ve got 85% of the country without access to safe sanitation, probably 65% and above that don’t access safe water,” he mentioned.

According to the African Development Bank, 92% of individuals in South Sudan dwell below the poverty line.

Part of the speedy response group for sanitation and hygiene that had been reduce from WASH Sector Capacity price range a yr earlier was on the cusp of being introduced again on-line in 2025. But when Trump yanked support, Seal mentioned, companies had been then decreased to a “critical, critical, critical” minimal. Plans for that speedy response group disappeared.

For years, the U.S. was a “funder of the core pipeline” for speedy response groups, which function a priceless software in a disaster, mentioned Seal. They’re nimble and cell, and may put locals involved with nationwide or worldwide companions.

After the assault on Old Fangak, the AHPSS group went seeking to see the place folks that they had supplied help to within the area for years fled. They searched to see the place these folks had congregated so they may set up water wells and distribute seeds and instruments. They discovered them residing on little patches of land barely peeking above floodwaters.

Hickel estimated one such “island” contained over 20,000 displaced folks.

“It was so jam-packed with people … no access to clean water, no farmland. A lot of their cows had died, no access to reliable health care,” he mentioned. “It was just a terrible, terrible situation.”

The group sees ladies and youngsters foraging for lily pads, gathering the roots and pounding them into flour.

The flooding makes farming tougher. In November, AHPSS distributed seeds to 600 households which are appropriate for small plots of land. In years previous, they envisioned larger-scale farms for onions, okra and tomatoes. Now the main focus is shifting to aquatic farming strategies that may be taught shortly and final the check of time.

NGOs could be plagued with corruption, particularly in nations like South Sudan the place determined situations vastly restrict oversight. Kapla has seen metal pipes for boreholes find yourself as personal fencing on authorities property; he has seen NGOs safe contracts for hundreds of {dollars} above what they should full a job, solely to pocket the excess. He has seen volunteers from well-known NGOs come to South Sudan solely to hardly ever depart their compound, totally failing to forge belief or relationships.

These issues want addressing if the U.S. desires to get essentially the most bang for its buck when it extends a serving to hand to the world.

“I can see a valid argument that it takes something to break the back of the aid industry [to fix it],” Kapla mentioned.

But when one of many wealthiest nations on this planet is snatching assets from a number of the world’s poorest, hungriest and sickest folks, he mentioned, “You can’t tell me USAID being cut off was a valid use of budgets.”

“The direct effect is for people to starve and die because you didn’t send bags of food. Your administration has blood on its hands. That’s the blood of starvation, that’s the blood of dying of treatable diseases because medicines that were there for decades are gone,” he mentioned.

Americans might not grasp the total “shame and humiliation” the cuts have triggered on the worldwide stage, he mentioned, and the way it eats into the belief and credibility that humanitarian staff or teams have on the bottom.

But AHPSS has labored to construct belief within the area by delivering what it guarantees: clear water and farming abilities. They interact folks and tribal leaders on their phrases and community for assets. They farm collectively. They eat collectively. They camp collectively.

“They greet us like brothers. I’m far safer in this village than I am anywhere in the United States in terms of people watching my back,” Kapla mentioned.

The South Sudanese work exhausting and aren’t merely ready for a handout from the U.S., the AHPSS leaders mentioned. But the funding cuts are heaping new obstacles atop outdated ones.

“These people from the villages that we’ve trained [to build wells or farm], they are the heroes… first displaced by fighting, then dispersed by flooding. They went to a new village and started a whole new compound, and within a couple of weeks, they’re in there punching bore wells. They’re heroes. They never missed a step,”Hickel mentioned.

In December, Trump took away another piece of hope for South Sudanese overseas nationals: He banned them from getting into the U.S., citing fears of “widespread corruption.”

Reflecting on the administration’s actions, Kapla mentioned they’re pages ripped from the oldest playbook.

“Your governments will tell you the world is a scary place because fear controls. Your parents will tell you the world is a scary place because fear controls. But the world is not a scary place,” he mentioned.

APHSS desires to maintain doing the suitable factor whereas working within the margins of struggling that Trump’s administration widened with its cuts.

Wells are being constructed quick, however not quick sufficient to maintain up with demand. Private donors are APHSS’s solely contributors, and 90% of the funds they obtain are spent on their applications in South Sudan. Todd Hardesty, the chief director of APHSS, mentioned final fiscal yr, that they had raised simply $1.2 million. This yr, they’ve raised simply $830,000. (Hardesty has spent his personal cash, too: He simply ordered supplies for 10 flood-resilient platforms, 10 extra water wells and two water yards. They are set to be delivered someday in December.)

In the face of, and regardless of the challenges, Kapla is aware of till AHPSS returns subsequent yr, the struggling doesn’t cease.

“Kids are kids all over the world. These kids deserve not to die,” he mentioned. “I keep coming back here because they deserve not to suffer. There’s more work to do, and I wish more people would do it.”