Medical NGOs In Syria Provide Vital Services Amid Aid Cuts And A Hobbled Healthcare System

ALEPPO, SYRIA - JUNE 24: A community outreach worker from French healthcare NGO Mehad walks past a building with a Syrian flag on to do check ups on mothers and babies who they have been assisting with nutritional support in Kaljibrin, on June 24, 2025 in Aleppo Govenorate, Syria. Medical clinics in Syria have been overwhelmed as some NGO-supported facilities have been forced to close due to cuts to foreign-aid budgets, most notably the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year. Workers at Mehad said that there have been 20 severe acute malnutrition (SAM) cases in the Azaz area, north of Aleppo, in the last three months but they don't have any nutritional baby food, known as Plumpy Nuts to give the babies. Mehad said money for the nutrition programmes, giving women and babies food aid and nutritional advice to cure and prevent acute malnutrition, will run out July 2025 unless they find a new donor, the NGO said, and the mother-and-child centers will stop working if they don't find a news donor. Mehad told Getty Images that since the cuts to USAID, there has been increased competition between NGOs for other funding, putting much of Mehad's work at risk. As Syria rebuilds from a 13-year civil war, the country's health services are largely dependent on NGOs in the absence of a more robust and organized healthcare system.