Cnn
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The American agency for international development employees told this week the panic they have known in the days which followed their order to return from their assignments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Several employees, as part of a legal action filed Tuesday by a group representing members of the agency’s external service, painted heartbreaking photos of their chaotic departures from Kinshasa in the midst of violent protests in the capital, while The administration of President Donald Trump ended certain foreign assistance programs and placed members of the management of Washington on leave leading to internal dismay and a lack of advice for the staff.
In recent weeks, guidelines for staff around the world to return to the United States and employees to be on administrative leave has been part of the Trump administration efforts to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the agency in The aim of reducing the size of the federal workforce.
CNN contacted the State Department and USAID for comments.
The State Department ordered the staff of the non -urgent American government and their family members to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the middle of the climbing of violence in the country and its capital of Kinshasa in late January.
The United States Embassy in the DRC – which is closed until further notice – advised American citizens in a security alert on Tuesday “to shelter in place” due to demonstrations in Kinshasa. The embassy urged citizens to “leave safely while commercial options are available”.
An official who was parked in the DRC told CNN that employees who had left most of their personal effects in Kinshasa do not know if there will be their houses that will be looted or burned.
Everyone thought that “we can make it work until things calm down and that we will return, but it is no longer an option,” said the manager. “It’s just the anxiety to get our jobs that we do will no longer be.”
“The most important thing is that people understand that we are not criminals,” said the manager, seeming to refer to the characterization by Elon Musk of the agency as “a criminal organization”. Musk heads the Ministry of Effectiveness of the newly formed government and discussed the closure of the USAID with Trump.
Workers concerned about the American government “could abandon them fully” in Kinshasa
An external service agent, identified in the trial like Marcus Doe, said that he feared for his security and his family in the midst of generalized demonstrations in Kinshasa, including at the United States Embassy and outside of His home on January 28.
He detailed the challenges to which he and other staff members have been faced – including a colleague whose house was burned down and “lost all their personal looting effects” – and told him that he was told that “Any expenditure not directly approved” by the agency’s interim administrator could be considered to be defying the administration orders.
“I started to feel a feeling of intense panic that my government could completely abandon the Americans working for Usaid in Kinshasa,” said Marcus Doe.
Marcus Doe said that he and his colleagues had been evacuated to small boats in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo, without approved renunciation, which they finally received. From there, they went up on a flight to Washington, where they “granted two nights at the Airport hotel to understand what we would then do”, according to the file.
The employees, have argued the trial, were left to sort their accommodation, their tuition plans for their children and “other support payments which would normally be due to the evacuated families”.
“To date, we have always received none of these payments,” said Marcus Doe in the file, adding later: “The chaos of the random closure of the Trump administration and the extracted -constitutional closure of USAID has caused me immense emotional distress by contributing to a feeling of panic and already intense uncertainty of riots in Kinshasa.
An official of pregnant health of external services, identified as Ruth Doe in the file, said that she had access to limited water and had received no food for 12 hours during her return to the United States, and Even if it had been “ensured before evacuation” by the State Department that the Agency “would help facilitate access” to prenatal care on its return, this was not the case.
“Until now, the State Department’s Medical Services Office has not been able to help organize an appointment before March 10,” said Ruth Doe, a date which, according to her, was “too late” according to a determined health plan with a doctor in Kinshasa.
Ruth Doe noted that she had traveled outside of Washington to receive care and that he had paid them. She did not receive a refund, she said in the file: “To cover the costs of accommodation, food, clothes and other necessities.”
“In a week, I spent nearly $ 5,000 on these necessities,” said Ruth Doe. “We have received contradictory and unclear advice on how to submit for reimbursement of these costs. Given the chaotic nature of the closure of the USAID, I fear that we would not receive reimbursement in a timely time for these costs. »»
The external service officer describes “mental and physical anxiety” of moving
Another external service agent, identified in the file as Nathan Doe, detailed in the pursuit of “the trauma” to leave Kinshasa in the middle of the night with three young children and to leave his dog. Things, he said, have not become easier since their arrival in Washington.
“To minimize the personal costs I sent,” Nathan Doe wrote in the file, his family moved to Michigan when he rented an apartment in Washington.
At the time of the deposit, Nathan Doe said that he had not received advice to find out if he would be reimbursed for relocation and that he had been told that “people who coordinate the evacuations of the USAID n ‘ were not there ”because of their leave.
“While the news of what was going on in the USAID played on the headlines and that I tried to sail in work, our situation, etc., I received calls from my children asking me if I still had a job and what we were going to do, ”Nathan Doe said in the file.
“My children were afraid-not only did we have just crossed the trauma to be evacuated, but they were afraid for me, for us, that we were unemployed,” he continued. “I feel mental and physical anxiety and exhaustion.”
The legislator slams “scandal”
Following the trial of the American Foreign Service Association, the democratic representative of Virginia, Don Beyer, criticized Trump and the secretary of state Marco Rubio, the acting director of the agency, for the chaos of the return of the employees external service.
“This is an absolute scandal,” wrote Beyer in an article on X. “Trump and Marco Rubio abandoned American workers and their families abroad without approving subsidy derogations to provide their return in complete security in the United States. ”
Beyer is the last democratic member of the Congress to condemn the administration’s attempts to close the agency, retain critical foreign aid and reduce key surveillance.
Since his entry into office in January, Trump has dismissed a certain number of government’s guard dogs, including the USAID Inspector General one day after his office has published a report criticizing the administration’s efforts.
“Trump causes chaos and confusion and, in the case of the USAID, putting so many lives in danger,” said senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey last week.
“What is of vital importance now is that we are not silent. We have to call this, “he continued.
Jennifer Hansler of CNN and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
