Ethiopians starving after U.S. discovers stolen aid

More than 700 Ethiopians are estimated to have died after foreign agencies cut food aid due to discovered thefts. The decision to suspend aid was “wrenching” and a last resort, the U.S. Agency for International Development said in a statement. U.S. officials in March discovered that wheat—sufficient to feed 134,000 people for a month—was missing from a North Ethiopian warehouse and being sold at a town market. U.S. and UN officials stopped aid to the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray and cut food aid to the entire county in June.

When will aid return? U.S. and UN aid officials said July was the earliest that aid could be restored. Administrators refuse to restore aid until Ethiopian officials give the U.S. full control of dispensing food aid. The Ethiopian government claims no fault for the food thefts and has not given any indication that they plan to give in to U.S. requests. 

Dig deeper: Read Onize Ohikere's report in WORLD Magazine on the Ethiopian famine of 2022.