Bangkok:
Three American aid workers were discontinued in Myanmar, while Myanmar helped in protecting and recovery from the country’s major earthquakes, a former senior employee said, because the disintegration of foreign aid of the Trump administration affects its disaster response.
After traveling to the South East Asian nation, the three officers were told at the end of this week that they would be allowed to leave, Marsia Wong, a former officer of the US Agency for International Development, told the Reuters.
“This team is working incredibly hard, focusing on getting human assistance to the needy people. To receive the news of their adjacent termination – how can it not collapse?” Wong, former Deputy Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian aid, said, who oversees the Washington disease response efforts abroad.
President Donald Trump’s government has promised Myanmar at least $ 9 million after the magnitude -7.7 earthquake, killing over 3,300. But his administration’s mass cut for USAID has obstructed its ability to respond, while China, Russia, India and other countries have participated in aid.
The Trump administration has shifted almost all USAID employees to fire in recent weeks, as the Department of Government Elon Musk has reduced funding and rejected contractors in federal bureaucracy that it attacks waste expenses.
All three USAID workers are sleeping on the roads in the earthquake area, Wong said, saying that their end will be effective in a few months. Residents are sleeping out of fear of afterox and further construction,
Wong said he is in touch with the remaining USAID employees and heard of the end after the all-staff meeting on Friday.
Former USAID employees say that most people who have coordinated the response have been allowed to go, while third-party implementation partners have lost contracts.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to the remarks request. State Secretary Marco Rubio on Friday dismissed criticisms that Washington was slow to respond to the 28 March earthquake as USAID was destroyed.
Instead, he told reporters in Brussels, Myanmar was not “the easiest place”, saying that the military government does not like the United States and prevents it from working in the country as it wants.
The United Nations has stated that Juten was limiting humanitarian aid.
Rubio said that the US will no longer be the top human donor in the world, calling other rich countries to take steps to help Myanmar.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)