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WFP resumes food aid delivery in Ethiopia

Displaced Sudanese wait to cross into Ethiopia from Sudan's border town of Gallabat, on August 3, 2023. - The United States said October 5, 2023 it would resume limited food assistance in Ethiopia, delivering to some one million refugees, but will keep most operations suspended after concerns of systematic diversion of aid. (Photo by AFP)

By AFP | Wednesday, October 11, 2023

The UN agency said the aid was intended only for the country's almost 900,000 refugees living in camps.

The World Food Programme said Tuesday it had partially resumed distributing food aid in Ethiopia, after halting assistance over the diversion of supplies.

The UN agency said the aid was intended only for the country's almost 900,000 refugees living in camps.

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The WFP and US agency USAID halted food aid to Africa's second most populous country in June after discovering supplies were not reaching those in need, raising fears millions of Ethiopians would be left in desperate straits.

Around 17 per cent of the country's 120 million people depend on food aid.

Last week USAID said it had resumed food aid to refugees in around 30 camps.

Most refugees in Ethiopia are from Somalia, Eritrea, and South Sudan. Around 35,000 have fled the conflict in neighbouring Sudan in recent months.

"Families living in refugee camps across five regions, including new arrivals who have fled from Sudan, are receiving food parcels for the first time since WFP paused food distributions in June," the WFP said.

It followed "a full revamp of the safeguards and controls in its refugee operations," the WFP added.

"Refugee food security has deteriorated in the past months, leading to increased malnutrition, heightened tensions around the camps and even unsafe journeys back across the border," it said.

"Food is a lifeline for refugees living in unimaginably hard conditions, and it's a relief that we now have measures in place to resume vital support," said WFP assistant executive director Valerie Guarnieri.

The WFP added that it was also making progress in rolling out "controls and measures needed to resume food distributions for millions of food insecure Ethiopians".

At the end of July, the WFP launched "test distributions" of food aid in the Tigray region following the brutal two-year war between forces loyal to the federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front.