Starvation alert as children fill Kenya refugee ward after US aid cuts

NAIROBI, Kenya: Hundreds of thousands of people are “slowly starving” in Kenyan refugee camps after US funding cuts reduced food rations to their lowest ever levels, a United Nations official has told the BBC.

The impact is starkly visible at a hospital in the sprawling Kakuma camp in the north-west of the East African nation. It is home to roughly 300,000 refugees who have fled strife in countries across Africa and the Middle East.

Emaciated children fill a 30-bed ward at Kakuma’s Amusait Hospital, staring blankly at visitors as they receive treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

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One baby, Hellen, barely moves. Parts of her skin are wrinkled and peeling, leaving angry patches of red – the result of malnutrition, a medic tells the BBC.

Across the aisle lies a nine-month-old baby, James, the eighth child of Agnes Awila, a refugee from northern Uganda.

“The food is not enough, my children eat only once a day. If there’s no food what do you feed them?” she asks.