We remain puzzled why the drastic measures are taken for Tigray only, in view of the country-wide organised food aid theft…The food aid meant for the starving Tigrayans that has been substantially stolen and taken to locations like Gambela and even Kenya is the talk of the town in Mekelle. 

Source: Professor Jan Nyssen

Over the last three months, more than 270 people have died of hunger just in the northwestern zone of Tigray. The deaths were reported from Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) centers and from villages in the zone. Earlier on, we had reported on the dire hunger situation in the IDP camps in Mekelle. Things are worse than before: people are dying daily from starvation. Additionally, thousands of newly arrived IDPs from Western Tigray are also in need of immediate food support.

According to the Tigray Regional Health Bureau, between March and April, there was an increase of 28% in the number of young children under five dying from acute malnutrition. The cessation of help to Tigray is mostly to blame for this. In a long Twitter thread, Spanish journalist Ximena Borrazas further reports on the ongoing starvation in Tigray.

More details are now emerging on the reasons for food aid suspension by WFP and USAID (by far the largest food aid donor to Ethiopia), and it has to do with large-scale theft that is occurring since several years, but now escalated. 

After an internal inquiry into food aid diversion was started, The New Humanitarian announced that the director and deputy of the WFP in Ethiopia resigned on June 2 – an information that WFP denied. The investigation’s findings are yet to be published.

The investigation looked into possible food aid diversion, in which food allegedly intended for Tigray was instead sold on the open market – volumes of aid grain were traced at various parts in Ethiopia. Due to this, help to Tigray has been halted until the investigation is finished.

I assisted in a food aid distribution (PSNP) in Tigray around 2016. Village per village, the people came with their donkeys. They told me that they would have preferred renting an Isuzu small truck to load all the bags for their village; but it was a condition that they came with their donkeys. There shouldn’t be any lorries close to the distribution centre, to avoid bulk reselling by the people who were in charge of  the aid distribution.

Of course, some large lorries might have gone directly to the flour mills, but according to the farmers, at the village distribution level, there was no theft.

Last year, the National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) commissioner Mitiku Kassa had already been sidelined for corruption regarding aid distribution – which did not stop theft going on.

In April, IDPs in the Aba’ala zone of the Afar region already launched protests over the role that government officials played in the misappropriation of relief funds. At that occasion, Melese Awoke, senior communication officer at WFP Ethiopia stated that aid corruption is common.

Over the next weeks, more WFP resignations are anticipated since it’s believed that food supplies were also diverted in the Somali region that is already suffering from drought.

Now, internal sources state that the food aid corruption scandal also involves the Ethiopian army (ENDF) and eight regional governments, as well as high-ranking figures from WFP and USAID. It has been running for years (before the war) but it escalated during the war. The grain is diverted to traders and large flour factories. The corruption would even be linked up to suspicions of inflation of the population statistics of Ethiopia from 100M to 120M, which allowed inflating the food aid volumes, hence possibilities for diverting it.

The food aid meant for the starving Tigrayans that has been substantially stolen and taken to locations like Gambela and even Kenya is the talk of the town in Mekelle. The Ethiopian prime minister recently made the extremely proud declaration that his country was now exporting grain.

Luckily for the starving people in other regions of Ethiopia, outside Tigray, the food aid has not been interrupted there. But we remain puzzled why the drastic measures are taken for Tigray only, in view of the country-wide organised food aid theft. Therefore, it is vital to loosen the constraints on food aid to Tigray while being completely transparent about the theft strategies that have been uncovered and the primary offenders.

Developments

On 9 June, USAID decided to suspend food aid to the entire country Ethiopia.

A European diplomat in Addis Abeba (who has always been dependable in the past years) confirmed that the grain PM Abiy boasted about exporting was really grain that had been taken from WFP/USAID relief shipments. Hence, the PM’s declaration was likely a public relations stunt to hide what was really going on.

The diplomat said that there is a growing consensus that the ordinary citizens of Tigray and Ethiopia, who are the victims of this colossal fraud, shouldn’t once more be the target of aid interruption. Cash assistance is one method of helping the poorest of the poor since there are less opportunities for theft and it doesn’t interfere with the crop production by the local farmers. In any event, it is encouraging to hear that there is at least a desire to resume help to Tigray. We can only hope that they can find a solution to make up for the enormous shortfall and inaction.

Measures should target the culprits, not the victims!

Sources