Children dying of starvation in Kenya: 54 dead at one clinic in 2025 alone (December 17, 2025 )
December 17, 2025 — A ProPublica investigation at a malnutrition clinic in Kenya documented the human cost of the USAID cuts in concrete terms: at least 54 children had died at the hospital from malnutrition complications in 2025 alone, including a surge in spring when families first began rationing food after the USAID funding freeze. Whiteboards in the clinic tracked admissions and deaths. A 20-year-old mother sat in the courtyard considering "an extreme solution" for her two malnourished children.
The investigation confirmed what public health researchers had been warning for months. 2025 was the first year in decades that early childhood deaths globally were projected to increase rather than decrease, according to the Gates Foundation's annual Goalkeepers report — and researchers identified cuts to foreign aid as a key contributing factor. The Center for Global Development estimated that USAID's cuts had already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in 2025. Surgeon and health policy expert Dr. Atul Gawande, former head of global health at USAID under Biden, said by November that "hundreds of thousands have already died" as a direct result of the USAID closure. "We had the cure for death from malnutrition, and we took it away," he said.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, cholera cases increased 62 percent in 2025 as access to clean water programs funded by USAID collapsed. In South Sudan, communities that had relied on U.S.-funded health centers for all primary care lost those services entirely. The World Food Programme had received $16.8 billion from the U.S. over the previous five years; those flows largely stopped, leaving the WFP struggling to maintain operations in Sudan, Ethiopia, Yemen, and other active famine zones.
| https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths |