At least five children and three adults with cholera died as they went in search of treatment in South Sudan after aid cuts by the Trump administration shuttered local health clinics during the country’s worst cholera outbreak in decades, the international charity Save the Children reported this week.
The victims, all from the country’s east, died on a grueling three-hour walk in scorching heat as they tried to reach the nearest remaining health facility, the agency said in a statement.
The American aid cuts, put into effect by the Trump administration in January, forced 7 of 27 health facilities supported by Save the Children across Akobo County to close and 20 others to partly cease operations, the charity said in a statement. Some clinics are now run only by volunteers, and they no longer have the means to transport sick patients to hospitals.
In an interview on Thursday, Christopher Nyamandi, Save the Children’s country director for South Sudan, said he had visited a health clinic in Akobo County that was providing nutrition assistance and helping with the cholera response shortly after the cuts were announced. The scene he described was dire.
Tents that were supposed to hold 25 people were crammed with hundreds, he said. People were sleeping outside, facing exposure to mosquitoes and withering heat while they tried recovering from cholera.
Mr. Nyamandi said health care workers on the scene described “how difficult it is to manage the situation where people are just out there. And when somebody dies,” he added, the workers can only “try to protect the children from seeing that scene.”
Cholera is caused by the ingestion of contaminated food or water and is often prevalent in areas where people are living in cramped conditions and amid poor sanitation. The disease can cause death by dehydration but is easily treated with medication that costs pennies.
South Sudan is in the midst of its worst cholera outbreak in two decades, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund said in a March statement. More than 47,000 suspected and confirmed cases have been reported there since September 2024, according to data from the World Health Organization.
The United States spent $760 million on aid for South Sudan in 2023, and the Trump administration’s aid cuts have worsened an already bleak humanitarian situation in a young nation teetering on the brink of war.
The Department of Government Efficiency, headed by the South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk, has gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been Washington’s primary distributor of foreign aid for decades. The State Department has been charged with taking over U.S.A.I.D.’s remaining responsibilities by mid-August.
U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
South Sudan has been dependent on foreign aid since its independence in 2011, and people there face the compounding tragedies of war and malnutrition, making cholera outbreaks even more deadly.
With the country plagued by widespread instability and lack of infrastructure, Mr. Nyamandi said he believes the number of cholera deaths are being underreported and are likely to rise with the aid cuts.
“The sudden withdrawal of funding that was the key to the survival of vulnerable families and children is going to result in more deaths,” he said.
Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.
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