Nairobi: Because donations were being taken away from those in need, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced on Thursday that it was suspending food assistance to Ethiopia.

Using the Ethiopian government as a partner, a spokesperson for USAID claimed that a "widespread and coordinated campaign is diverting food assistance from the people of Ethiopia."

Who was behind the campaign was not disclosed in the statement. In Ethiopia, where more than 20 million people require food assistance, most of them as a result of drought and a recently ended war in the northern Tigray region, the United States is by far the country's largest humanitarian donor.

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USAID thinks the food has been diverted to Ethiopian military units, according to an internal briefing by a group of foreign donors to Ethiopia seen by Reuters.

According to the Humanitarian and Resilience Donor Group (HRDG), which includes USAID, the scheme appears to be organised by federal and local government agencies, with military units all over the nation receiving humanitarian aid.

Requests for comment were not immediately answered by military and government spokespeople in Ethiopia. USAID chose not to respond to the report.

On the sidelines of a conference in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen about the problem.

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Afterward, according to the State Department, Blinken welcomed Ethiopia's government's pledge to collaborate with the US on a thorough investigation.

The spokesperson for USAID stated that once the organisation was confident in the reliability of the system, food assistance would resume.
A month ago, USAID and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) already stopped providing food aid to the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia in response to information that significant amounts of that aid were being misdirected.

The federal government and forces led by the region's dominant political party fought in Tigray for two years before agreeing to a truce in November. During that time, tens of thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to live in conditions resembling famine.

USAID provided Ethiopia with nearly $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid during the 2022 fiscal year, the majority of it in the form of food aid.

The HRDG briefing paper, distributed to donors on Wednesday, suggested that Ethiopia's government permit donors to deliver aid via "alternative modalities" like cash transfers.

Additionally, it urged donors to ask Ethiopia's leadership to publicly denounce the diversion and demand that aid workers not be harassed.

Due to the Tigrayan civil war and the worst drought in decades in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia's food crisis has worsened recently.

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According to an email sent last week by the WFP's deputy director to employees in Ethiopia, the organisation is also looking into "systemic" food diversion throughout Ethiopia.
Requests for comment from a WFP spokesperson did not receive a prompt response.