Cuts in US foreign aid under President Donald Trump have caused a "seismic shock" to global humanitarian action, the head of a United Nations agency said, warning that "many people will die" as a result. 
Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimated that 300 million or more people around the world are in need of humanitarian assistance and that "the pace and scale of the funding cuts we have faced are, of course, a seismic shock to the sector." 
"A lot of people are going to die because that aid is drying up," he told a news conference. 
Since Trump returned to power in January, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been targeted in his administration's drive to cut government spending, with the consequences already being felt around the world. 
After freezing all foreign aid for review, the US State Department said last week it would terminate 83% of USAID contracts. 
"Across the UN family and our partners, we make hard choices every day about which lives we're going to have to prioritize, which lives we're going to have to try to save," Fletcher said, acknowledging that "we've been ... overly dependent on U.S. funding." 
In December, the United Nations estimated that $47.4 billion in humanitarian aid would be needed in 2025, although that amount is only enough to help about 190 million people in need. 
Without U.S. funding, which Fletcher says "has saved hundreds of millions of lives," the estimated scope of U.N. humanitarian aid is again reduced. 
"I have colleagues in Geneva right now trying to determine how we could prioritize saving 100 million lives and what that would cost us over the next year."| BGNES