MAE SOT, Thailand - Groups helping victims of Myanmar’s turmoil are struggling to provide assistance after the U.S. put a 90-day freeze on nearly all foreign aid, one organization said on Thursday, as the U.N. warned of looming hunger five years after the military ousted an elected government.
More than 3.5 million people have been displaced in Myanmar due to war between a junta that seized power in 2021, which is backed by China and sanctioned by Western governments, and a loose alliance of pro-democracy and ethnic minority groups battling to end military rule.
In the 2024 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, the U.S. provided $141 million in humanitarian aid to Myanmar, much of which is channeled through groups working on the Thai-Myanmar border.
The U.S. State Department on Friday announced the freeze on nearly all aid in order to give the State Department time to review programs “to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda.”
In the days since, stop-work orders have been sent by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to implementing partners ranging from media organizations to clinics.
One aid worker, who declined to be identified, said about 20 relief groups providing healthcare with USAID assistance along the Thai-Myanmar border were at risk of being suspended.
Nai Aue Mon, program director of the Human Rights Foundation of Monland group,which documents human rights violations, said communication and travel costs, salaries and stipends would be hit.
“To be honest, it’s widespread, it’s huge,” Nai Aue Mon said of the impact of the aid freeze on humanitarian groups in areas under the administration of the anti-junta Karen National Union in Kayin state and to the south in Mon state, affecting thousands of people.
“It significantly impacts those groups … nearly every organization is more or less impacted by this executive order.”
Groups might have some funds in reserve and were scrambling for other sources of donations but the outlook was grim, he said.
“As far as I know, my organization, we still have some resources but we don’t know after that,” Nai Aue Mon said. “We’re definitely struggling a lot.”
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Some 100,000 ethnic Karen people from eastern Myanmar war zones have lived in camps on the Thai side for decades and people fleeing more recent repression in Myanmar’s towns and cities have also sought shelter on the border.
Refugee camp hospitals were having to discharge patients because health workers had been suspended from duties, a health worker speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFA.
Thailand will help fill the gap in funding for the camps on its soil, at least for the time being, a government minister said, according to The Bangkok Post.
“We cannot abandon or chase them away since they have lived here in the camps for a long time,” Thai Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin told the newspaper.
“We cannot just talk about refugees who have been affected … All kinds of healthcare and assistance must be provided to other groups of people who live in this country.”
The freeze in U.S. aid comes as Myanmar is spiraling into a humanitarian crisis, aid groups say.
“A staggering 15 million people are expected to face hunger in 2025, up from 13.3 million last year,” the World Food Programme said in a report on Wednesday.
Almost 20 million people, or nearly one in three people in Myanmar, will need humanitarian assistance in 2025, the U.N. food agency said.
“Growing conflict across the country, access restrictions, a crumbling economy and successive weather-related crises are driving record levels of hunger,” said the WFP Country Director Michael Dunford.
“The world cannot afford to overlook Myanmar’s escalating crisis. Without immediate and increased international support, hundreds of thousands more will be pushed to the brink.”
Edited by RFA Staff.