The Trump administration’s axing of almost $US60 billion in foreign aid, ending around 10,000 individual programs, is consigning possibly hundreds of thousands of people, including untold numbers of children, to death, aid agencies and former US officials have said.

From HIV drug supplies in the Congo to food programs for Syrian refugees and hospitals in Gaza; and from Ebola clinics in Uganda to health and nutrition for Rohingya refugees, the dismantling of USAID is having a devastating effect.

After the US Government moved to freeze foreign aid, representing a third of global humanitarian funding, Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Americans and the rest of the world that lifesaving work would continue.

Aid agencies scrambled to prove their work saved lives and was deserving of support. The US agreed that many programs prevent immediate death and should remain operating.

In February, waivers were granted as US officials conducted a three-month review. Then, four weeks later Rubio and his aide Peter Marocco axed funding to nearly 10,000 aid programs — including those given waivers.

They said the programs did not align with Trump’s agenda.

Aid agencies and former USAID officials as well as local ground level organisations are results of this could a death toll in the hundreds of thousands.

The cuts are now the subject of legal cases in the US.

Former US officials say the US has axed important programs without consulting contract officers, who have oversight of individual programs and are aid groups’ primary contacts.

“None of us believe that they’re conducting a careful, individualized review,” one official told media outlet ProPublica.

In one incident the mobile phones of US aid workers operating in conflict zones Ukraine and Haiti were switched off when the contract with the phone company was cancelled.

The reduction in funding has severe impacts on vulnerable migrant communities, exacerbating humanitarian crises and undermining vital support systems for displaced populations, according to the United Nations.

UN agencies such as UNHCR and IOM have had to lay off staff and wind back programs as a result of the cuts. IOM has laid off 6000 people working on projects across the globe.

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said then brutal funding cuts in the humanitarian sector are putting millions of lives at risk.

He said the consequences for people fleeing danger will be immediate and devastating.

“Refugee women and girls at extreme risk of rape and other abuse are already losing access to services that kept them safe,” Mr Grandi said.

“Children are being left without teachers or schools, pushing them into child labour, trafficking, or early marriage; and refugee communities will have less shelter, water and food,” he said.

“Most refugees stay close to home. Slashing aid will make the world less safe, driving more desperate people to become refugees or keep moving onwards.”

In just some disturbing developments related to the US cuts:

*Sudanese refugees living in Chad, who fled the civil war in their homeland, face losing vital health care services provided by the UN to refugees living in displacement camps;

*More than a million Rohingya refugees living in sprawling camps in Bangladesh, who fled the brutal military regime in Myanmar face a halving of their food rations from $US12 a month to $US6.50 a month;

*Six centres for extremely malnourished children in Sudan, run by the not-for-profit agency Alight, which treat babies and infants so sick that they will die within hours without ongoing care, have lost their $US120,000 a month funding;

*Tuberculosis drug and supply chains are failing in nine countries because of USAID cuts, the World Health Organisation has reported;

*Around 4.4 million people are at risk of hunger in Sudan, with the US cuts likely to bring on famine;

*Health facilities in Afghanistan are set to shut down in coming months without US financial support;

*UNHCR has suspended most medical aid for refugees in Egypt, including thousands fleeing war-torn Sudan, due to severe funding shortfalls;

*In South Sudan, only 25 percent of UNHCR’s dedicated spaces for women and girls at risk are currently operational. This deprives up to 80,000 people of services such as emergency psychosocial support, legal assistance, and medical care;

*Programs to protect against forced marriage and other forms of violence in South Sudan — particularly for adolescent refugee girls – have also been suspended, putting more than 2,000 of them at risk;

*In Sudan, the funding cuts will deprive at least 500,000 displaced people of access to clean water, sanitation, and medical care. In a country where nine million people have been displaced by brutal conflict, the need for shelter, healthcare, and psychosocial support is immense;

*In Jordan, 63 specialised programs providing assistance to women and girls have been closed or suspended, leaving 200,000 vulnerable people, both among refugees and in host communities, without support.