Despite a pledge from US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, that life-saving assistance would be exempt from the 90-day USAid freeze, for refugees like Wah K’Ler Paw, who relied on care from US-backed organisations, Trump’s decision has been deadly.
Along the border, the US government’s aid freeze has forced countless charities and NGOs providing healthcare and other essential services to refugees from Myanmar to suddenly cease operations or cut back their work.
Waste removal services, also provided by IRC, have stopped with refugees instead burying waste says Bweh Say, secretary of the Karen Refugee Committee.
“If you have no means to get to the local Thai hospital, then you don’t receive treatment,” says Kanchana Thornton, founder and director of Burma Children’s Medical Fund, which supports the cost of surgery for children and adults, and is funding patients who were once cared for by IRC.
Wah K’Ler Paw, a 30-year-old refugee from Myanmar, survived for about two weeks without dialysis after US president Donald Trump suspended foreign aid.
