Trump aid cuts to impact millions of children

Amman, May 2: When he grows up, five-year-old Ahmad wants to be "stronger than Spider-Man". But his dream clashes with a harsh reality -- the Jordanian boy has a serious disability, and major US aid cuts mean he will likely miss out on vital care.

Like him, millions of children around the world are suffering from the sweeping cuts ordered by US President Donald Trump.

All are grappling with hardship in one form or other: war, crime, global warming, poverty, disease and more.

Ahmad, who has a spinal malformation, cannot hold his torso upright and is paralysed from the waist down.

The boy was receiving physiotherapy sessions from Handicap International "to strengthen his upper limbs and enable him, later on, to walk with crutches," said his father, Mahmud Abdulrahman, a 30-year-old day labourer.

Abdulrahman said the non-governmental organisation was also due to provide orthotics and prosthetics to straighten Ahmad's lower limbs -- none of which he could afford on his meagre salary.

The Wehdat Rehabilitation Centre they attended in Jordan's capital Amman was one of the first victims of Trump's aid cuts.

More than 600 patients found themselves deprived of care overnight.

Prosthetics already specially designed for around 30 children, as well as wheelchairs, could not be delivered to them, on Washington's orders.

"The movement that was taught will be forgotten," said Dr Abdullah Hmoud, a physiotherapist who worked at the centre, describing the potential losses as "catastrophic".

When he realised he would no longer see his physiotherapist, "Ahmad stopped eating for three days. He didn't want to get up," said his father. With the closure of his rehabilitation centre, "I feel like they want to kill me," the boy said in a hushed voice.

Ahmad's story is one among many in a wave of horror accounts surfacing from the humanitarian sector since the United States said it was cutting 83 percent of its aid.

USAID -- which the Trump administration has dismantled -- had supported 42 percent of all aid distributed globally, with a $42.8 billion budget.

At a refugee camp in Bangladesh, home to a million Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar, half of them children, Save the Children has been forced to ration food. The NGO fears desperate families could be pushed to hand over daughters to traffickers or send sons on dangerous sea crossings to Malaysia for work.

In Mozambique, Solidarites International had to shut down a programme providing food and water to internally displaced people, including tens of thousands of children.