The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said Friday it is temporarily suspending food aid to Ethiopia because it is not reaching people in need in the African country. America had also made a similar announcement a day earlier.
“The diversion of food aid is completely unacceptable, and we welcome Ethiopia’s commitment to investigate and fix accountability,” said WFP Executive Director Cindy McCann.
The headquarters of WFP is in Rome. It declined to be contacted for further comment on the subject.
Some 10 million Ethiopians depend on food aid due to drought and conflict in the country. Most of this help is provided by ‘USAID’ (United States Agency for International Development). Ethiopia has a population of about 120 million.
This step of the United Nations agency is expected to increase malnutrition in Africa’s second most populous country.
USAID, WFP and the Ethiopian government have not said who is responsible for the transfer of food aid, which the US has described as “comprehensive and coordinated”.
However, a group of foreign donor representatives has prepared an internal memo indicating government complicity.
In a joint statement with USAID, the Ethiopian foreign ministry called the revelations “extremely worrying” on Thursday and said it was investigating with the United States to determine accountability.
The nationwide food aid freeze follows a statement issued last month by USAID and WFP that they have halted food supplies to Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. He had taken this decision given incidents of theft of food aid there.
It is noteworthy that USAID said a day ago that it had stopped all food aid sent to Ethiopia, Africa’s second-largest country in terms of population.
The agency said that an internal investigation has revealed that food aid supplied to satisfy the hunger of millions of people is being diverted.
