Washington, D.C. — Senate Republicans last night blocked U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff’s amendment to prevent the cutoff of food aid to starving children in war zones.
Overnight, the Senate debated the Trump Administration’s request to rescind funding passed by Congress for public media and international humanitarian assistance.
Sen. Ossoff offered an amendment to protect funding for the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), which runs nutrition programs in 130 countries to reach children in need and brings safe drinking water and sanitation to children in their homes and schools. However, Senate Republicans blocked the amendment.
The GOP rescissions bill cuts all U.S. direct funding to UNICEF — putting starving and sick kids around the world at risk.
During his remarks, Sen. Ossoff spoke about Abdullah, a severely malnourished one-year-old in Yemen. Abdullah was eventually treated with Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) provided by UNICEF, like those produced by MANA in Fitzgerald, Georgia, using Georgia-grown peanuts.
According to the Georgia Farm Bureau (GFB), MANA manufactures and distributes Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) to groups like UNICEF for treatment of malnourished children around the world and purchases 2 million pounds of Georgia-grown peanuts per month to produce their product.
“Many of us in the Senate are parents or grandparents of young children. This is Abdullah. He was one year old, starving in a war zone in Yemen, until his life was saved by emergency rations sent by the American people through UNICEF,” Sen. Ossoff said. “This bill ends the entire direct American contribution to UNICEF. Are we so calloused by politics that we would make this grievous and avoidable error, moral error? Do we believe it is the will of our constituents that children like Abdullah should die?”
“We are United States Senators with the power through this vote to save children’s lives, and to spare their parents the heartbreak of a small child’s death,” Sen. Ossoff concluded.
Click here to watch Sen. Ossoff’s remarks on the floor.
