APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Thursday announced it will suspended food aid to Ethiopia after an investigation uncovered that its food aid had been stolen and sold in the open market.
USAID said both federal and regional officials have been involved in diverting aid from those who need it to feed the military and ex-combatants, and selling it on the open market to millers who are engage in the reselling the flour.
“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” USAID said in a statement.
The U.S. is the biggest single donor to Ethiopia, providing $1.8 billion in humanitarian assistance, including food aid, in the 2022 fiscal year. In total, 20 million people across Ethiopia rely on aid because of conflict and drought, out of a total population of about 120 million.
The USAID announcement comes after both USAID and the United Nations World Food Program last month said they had suspended aid to Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region while they investigated allegations of food aid theft, which were first reported by the AP in April.
The Tigray region was the center of a devastating two-year conflict that ended in November and left 5.4 million of the population of six million relying on humanitarian help.
MG/as/APA