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MAIDUGURI: When the United States suddenly moved to dismantle its foreign aid system earlier this year, the UN’s land mine safety and removal project in Nigeria braced for impact.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded ordnance killed or injured 418 civilians in northeast Nigeria in 2024, more than double the year prior — but workers knew the severity of the crisis was no guarantee that the program would survive.
US President Donald Trump’s cuts came for everything, from malaria treatment to emergency food for starving people.
But then, nothing happened.
“We were very surprised,” said Edwin Faigmane, program chief for the UN Mine Action Service in Nigeria, noting USAID accounted for 20 percent of its funding.
The dismantling of USAID, Washington’s main foreign aid arm, has been catastrophic for people across the world. It has also been confusing.
Faigmane said he “couldn’t really get an answer” for why UNMAS survived cuts in Nigeria, where a violent jihadist insurgency has been raging since Boko Haram’s 2009 uprising.
Earlier this year, AFP reported that malaria clinics in Borno state, the epicenter of the violence, had shut down after USAID funding stopped.
UNMAS’s mission in Mali ended when USAID — its sole sponsor — cut its funding. Washington also clawed back funding for UNMAS in Sudan.
Earlier this year, UNMAS pre-emptively stopped its USAID-funded operations, until Faigmane got confirmation from USAID officials in Abuja, the capital, that they could continue as normal.
“We were able to deploy some other teams in the areas that we were supposed to cover with the USAID funding” during the pre-emptive suspension, Faigmane told AFP. “We were able to survive because of our other donors.”
US funds help UNMAS provide education for rural farmers and displaced persons on how to detect mines, IEDs and unexploded ordnance from the conflict — and how to report them for removal.
With funds from other donors, UNMAS also trains security personnel on disposal — a crucial job as Nigeria builds up a fledgling National Mine Action Center established in 2024.
The US State Department did not respond to a request for comment.

- Civilians on the frontlines -

At the El-Miskin displacement camp in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, workers from the local nonprofit The Big Smile Foundation gather groups for education sessions.
This camp’s activities are funded by other donors, but the Americans’ presence is still felt: USAID logos adorn education materials, including a chutes-and-ladders style game for children.
“We’ve learned how to stay safe... how to mark (suspected) ordnance from a distance, and report it to the community leader,” said Hauwa Inusa, a 60-year-old camp resident who fled her home a decade ago.
She might be forced to use her training soon: the Borno state government has marked the camp for closure.
With violence down from its peak a decade ago, the government in recent years has been shutting down camps and sending people back to the countryside.
But swathes of the rural northeast remain outside of government control.
The long-abandoned town of Darul Jamal, near the Cameroonian border, was recently repopulated with its former residents only for jihadists to massacre scores of them in a September raid.
UNMAS meanwhile isn’t out of the woods yet. After some initial uncertainty, Faigmane said, another tranche of US funding, some $225,000, arrived a few weeks ago, which should last until March 2026.
But if the United States eventually pulls out, “our reach collapses.”

KALININGRAD: As the Moscow-Kaliningrad train approached Lithuania, the car attendant beckoned to passengers in Russian: “I’m closing the entire carriage, the toilets are out of action.”
The 19-hour, 1,000-kilometer (650-mile) journey is the only land route between mainland Russia and its coastal exclave of Kaliningrad, wedged on the Baltic Sea between EU and NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
In echoes of the Cold War, passengers on the “Yantar,” the Russian word for amber, are locked inside for the three hours it spends traversing Lithuania.
The Baltic state has been one of Europe’s most pro-Kyiv voices, pushing for a hard line against Russia since it ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow sees it as a hostile state.
Doors and windows are sealed — to prevent Russians jumping off and escaping, Vilnius says. The toilets are only open for use while the train is speeding along, not when it stops.
“The border with Lithuania is in 30 minutes,” the assistant shouted to rouse slumbering passengers.
Though the train is half-empty, sleeping quarters are cramped and heating is blasted to the max.
Russian citizens need a visa for the EU’s Schengen zone or a special transit permit for the journey, even if they cannot set foot outside the train.
“Sometimes there are even fewer passengers. Traveling has become complicated since 2022,” one attendant, speaking anonymously, told AFP on a recent journey.
“Neither EU citizens nor Russian citizens are allowed to leave the transit train,” except in “urgent humanitarian reasons,” like if a passenger falls seriously ill, Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service told AFP in written comments.
For that reason, “the doors and windows are sealed,” an agent of the EU’s Frontex border force told AFP at a checkpoint en route.
“In the past, Russians found ways to get off the train and vanish into the wild,” the agent, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media, told AFP as he went between compartments checking documents.

- ‘Hot war’ -

On board, Nikolai was keeping an eye on a package slid under his bunk.
“It’s for my mum, she lives in Kaliningrad,” he told AFP.
He opted for the train to save money — 4,000 rubles ($50), compared to 10,000 ($125) for a flight — despite the hassle.
“It’s a little similar to the Cold War. But now it’s more of a hot war with the West,” he said.
From the Russian perspective, Kaliningrad, home to around one million people, has become something of a front line in its standoff with the West.
It is the headquarters of the Russian Baltic fleet and hosts Iskander nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
To fly between the exclave and the Russian capital, planes are forced on an hours-long detour northwards, through the Gulf of Finland, due to a ban on Russian commercial planes using EU airspace.
Lithuania earlier this month issued a diplomatic protest at Moscow over an alleged brief incursion into its airspace by two military planes stationed in Kaliningrad. Moscow has also bristled at what it calls threats by Vilnius to cut off land transit routes.
And Baltic neighbor Estonia said in September that Russian jets had violated its airspace for 12 minutes, prompting US President Donald Trump to say NATO should shoot down Russian planes that encroach members’ airspace.

- ‘Do you agree?’ -

Undergoing border checks at the Kena station, Lithuania also makes sure the Russians onboard have no doubt about its allegiances.
“Putin is killing Ukrainian civilians. Do you agree with it?” a poster facing into the train reads in Russian.
Photos of destroyed Ukrainian cities plaster the platform fence.
Two years ago, Lithuanian media were reporting several cases of Russians using the stop as their “window to Europe.”
The toilets are reopened as the train leaves Kena, only to be locked again a few hours later at the Kybartai border checkpoint, the exit point from Lithuania.
Russian border guards embark, subjecting non-Russian passengers to a barrage of questions.
“It’s their job to be curious,” said Vladimir, a retiree traveling with his wife, Irina. “Especially with foreigners.”
As the Yantar pulled into its final stop in Kaliningrad, and the doors unsealed for the final time, he puffed up: “We fear nothing. We are brave.”