BANGKOK: Three US aid workers were laid off while in Myanmar helping the rescue and recovery from the country’s massive earthquake, a former senior staffer said, as the Trump administration’s dismantling of foreign aid affects its disaster response.
After traveling to the Southeast Asian nation, the three officials were told late this week they would be let go, Marcia Wong, a former official at the US Agency for International Development, told Reuters.
“This team is working incredibly hard, focussed on getting humanitarian aid to those in need. To get news of your imminent termination — how can that not be demoralizing?” said Wong, former deputy administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which oversees Washington’s disease response efforts overseas.
President Donald Trump’s government has pledged at least $9 million to Myanmar after the magnitude-7.7 quake, which has killed more than 3,300. But his administration’s massive cuts to USAID have hindered its ability to respond, while China, Russia, India and other nations have rushed in assistance.
The Trump administration has moved to fire nearly all USAID staff in recent weeks, as billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has slashed funding and dismissed contractors across the federal bureaucracy in what it calls an attack on wasteful spending. The three USAID workers have been sleeping on the streets in the earthquake zone, Wong said, adding that their terminations would take effect in a few months. Residents have been sleeping outside for fear of aftershocks and further building collapses, Wong said she is in contact with remaining USAID staff and that she heard about the terminations after an all-staff meeting on Friday. Former USAID staff say most of the people who would have coordinated the response have been let go, while third-party implementing partners have lost contracts. The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday rejected criticism that Washington was slow to respond to the March 28 earthquake because USAID was dismantled.
Rather, he told reporters in Brussels, Myanmar was not “the easiest place to work,” saying the military government does not like the United States and prevents it from operating in the country as it wants to.
The United Nations has said the junta was limiting humanitarian aid.
Rubio said the US would no longer be the world’s top humanitarian donor, calling on other wealthy nations to step up in assisting Myanmar.

LONDON: An Afghan woman who risked her life defending human rights in her country has had her UK asylum claim rejected, The Guardian reported on Saturday.

Mina, whose name has been changed for anonymity reasons, supported Western-backed projects across Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover in 2021.

She traveled to Britain following the withdrawal of the Western coalition, but has now been told by the Home Office that it is safe for her to return.

“I assumed my asylum claim would be granted — I am from Afghanistan, I’m a woman, I worked with Western governments,” she said.

“The refusal was an absolute shock. Now every day I fear being sent back to my home country. Having a normal life here looks like a dream for me. I’m really suffering mentally.”

Previously, the Home Office had generally accepted asylum claims from women like Mina, yet 26 Afghan women were rejected in the last three months of 2024, statistics show.

Mina’s solicitor Jamie Bell said: “It is shocking that 26 Afghan women were refused asylum in the last quarter. However this is a particularly upsetting case where the Home Office states that a woman who risked her life defending women’s rights in Afghanistan would not be at risk on return.

“The UK should be proud to offer protection to an individual like her. This refusal letter is offensive to all those who defended Western values in Afghanistan and who ought to be offered protection when they cannot safely return.”

In total, 2,000 Afghan asylum-seekers had their claims rejected in the last three months of 2024 — a surge from 48 in the same period of 2023.

Mina said: “When I was working with Western government projects, I received security training about how to respond if I was caught up in a bombing or a kidnapping. Every day I was a few minutes or a few seconds away from bomb blasts.

“My heart beat so fast when I had to pass the checkpoints. Every morning when I said goodbye to my family to go to work I thought it might be the last time I saw them.

“Some of my colleagues just disappeared. The Taliban changed the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the Ministry of Vice and Virtue — proper, systematic elimination of women.”

Women and girls face serious risks to their safety in Afghanistan, a Human Rights Watch report published this year found.

Mina had personally told Home Office interviewers of the dangers she faced in Afghanistan as a result of her work.

But the official who rejected her claim said: “It is considered that you do not face a real risk of persecution or harm on your return to Afghanistan on the basis of your claimed adverse attention by the Taliban.”

The letter Mina received detailing her rejection added that she “likely has a great support network” due to her occupation.

The Home Office found that “there are no compassionate factors” in her case that would “warrant a grant of leave to remain outside the immigration rules.”

Mina said:  “When I arrived here, I felt safe. I thought I would have a chance to live. In Afghanistan I had not been considered a human. I learned to ride a bicycle here, something I was not allowed to do in my country.

“I was really full of hope that my life would change. But someone pressed pause on my life. I hope someone will press play again.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is our longstanding policy not to comment on individual cases.”