US suspends food aid to Ethiopia due to 'widespread' theft

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced on Thursday it has halted all food aid to Ethiopia after it discovered a "widespread and coordinated campaign" to steal contributions.

The US is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia, and the decision to suspend food deliveries followed a country-wide review that determined a sweeping effort "is diverting food assistance from the people of Ethiopia," a USAID spokesperson told Anadolu on condition of anonymity.

"As a result, we made the difficult but necessary decision that we cannot move forward with distribution of food assistance until reforms are in place," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

"Our intention is to immediately resume food assistance once we are confident in the integrity of delivery systems to get assistance to its intended recipients and when assistance is people-centered, needs-based, evidence-based, and independent," they added.

USAID did not ascribe responsibility for the theft, but it had previously moved to suspend food deliveries in the northern Tigray region in early May alongside the World Food Program. The latest decision appears to indicate the problems are far more widespread.

Ethiopia is in the midst of a biting drought affecting the wider Horn of Africa region, and is continuing to recover from a civil conflict that ended with a peace deal in November after two years of conflict.

The war between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions more since November 2020.

A UN report released late last year placed the number of displaced people in Ethiopia at 2.75 million, with 12.5 million children said to require urgent humanitarian assistance.