By the very admission of Samantha Power, administrator of the American Agency for Development and Humanitarian Aid (USAID), the decision was “difficult”. The United States and the World Food Program (WFP) announced on Wednesday that they were suspending “until further notice” their food aid to the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, ravaged by years of conflict.
Part of this aid was “diverted and sold on the local market”, justified Samantha Power. For its part, the WFP, based in Rome, says it has decided on a “pause in the distribution of food in Tigray, which will not resume until [qu’il] may be able to ensure that this vital aid does indeed reach its intended recipients”.
A decision that does not concern drinking water
The U.S. government has raised the matter with Ethiopian authorities as well as local authorities in Tigray who “expressed their willingness to work with us to identify those responsible and hold them to account,” according to USAID. . However, the organization clarified that this does not concern nutritional supplements, the distribution of drinking water and support for agricultural activities in the region.
On the other hand, the amount of food aid concerned was not specified, but the United States is the largest humanitarian contributor to Ethiopia. “This diversion once again strikes an innocent civilian population,” continued USAID, stressing that “millions of people live in acute food insecurity”.
This pause comes six months after the signing, on November 2, between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) of a “cessation of hostilities agreement” ending two years of brutal war. and murderous. On Tuesday, the United States welcomed the “significant progress” made in the implementation of this agreement even if the challenges remain numerous.
During the conflict, Tigray and its six million inhabitants were deprived of assistance for a long time. Since then, “84% of the region is experiencing a food crisis”, according to the WFP. Northern Ethiopia “has become more accessible”, but the aid does not reach “the required scale”, underlined the UN humanitarian agency (Ocha) at the beginning of April.