NAIROBI: The Ethiopian government on Saturday criticized a move by two major aid organizations to halt the sending of food assistance to the country after discovering it was being diverted from those who need it.
The Ethiopian government’s spokesman Legesse Tulu told journalists the decision by USAID and the World Food Programme (WFP) “punishes millions”.
On Thursday, USAID, the US government’s main international aid agency, said it was halting food distribution “until reforms are in place” to the way in which the aid is delivered.
The WFP followed suit on Friday, saying it was temporarily halting only some food aid assistance.
The decision will affect millions of Ethiopians facing severe food shortages due to a devastating war in the northern region of Tigray, and a punishing drought in the south and southeast that has also struck Somalia and parts of Kenya.
Last month, USAID and WFP said they would freeze food aid to Tigray after the agencies discovered that shipments were being diverted to local markets.
Neither agency has identified those responsible for taking the aid and reselling it.
However, Tulu said the decision to halt assistance was “political,” adding that “to make the government only responsible (for the diversions) is unacceptable.”
Ethiopia’s government on Friday said in a joint statement with USAID that it was committed to addressing the “deeply concerning revelations of food aid diversion”.
Due to conflict and drought, around 20 million people in Ethiopia depend on food aid, the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) said in May.
Ethiopia hosts nearly one million refugees, mostly from South Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea.
Nearly 30,000 fleeing the recent conflict in Sudan have since mid-April found refuge in the country.
Ethiopia says food aid suspension ‘punishes millions’
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Ethiopia says food aid suspension ‘punishes millions’
- USAID, the US government’s main international aid agency, said it was halting food distribution “until reforms are in place”
Russian minister visits Cuba as Trump ramps up pressure on Havana
- The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba
HAVANA: Russia’s interior minister began a visit to ally Cuba on Tuesday, a show of solidarity after US President Donald Trump warned that the island’s longtime communist government “is ready to fall.”
Trump this month warned Havana to “make a deal,” the nature of which he did not divulge, or pay a price similar to Venezuela, whose leader Nicolas Maduro was ousted by US forces in a January 3 bombing raid that killed dozens of people.
Venezuela was a key ally of Cuba and a critical supplier of oil and money, which Trump has vowed to cut off.
“We in Russia regard this as an act of unprovoked armed aggression against Venezuela,” Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev told Russian state TV Rossiya-1 of the US actions after landing in Cuba.
“This act cannot be justified in any way and once again proves the need to increase vigilance and consolidate all efforts to counter external factors,” he added.
The Russian embassy in Havana said the minister would “hold a series of bilateral meetings” while in Cuba.
Russia and Cuba, both under Western sanctions, have intensified their relations since 2022, with an isolated Moscow seeking new friends and trading partners since its invasion of Ukraine.
Cuba needs all the help it can get as it grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades and now added pressure from Washington.
Trump has warned that acting President Delcy Rodriguez will pay “a very big price” if she does not toe Washington’s line — specifically on access to Venezuela’s oil and loosening ties with US foes Cuba, Russia, China and Iran.
On Tuesday, Russia’s ambassador to Havana, Victor Koronelli, wrote on X that Kolokoltsev was in Cuba “to strengthen bilateral cooperation and the fight against crime.”
The US chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, meanwhile, met the head of the US Southern Command in Miami on Tuesday “to discuss the situation in Cuba and the Caribbean,” the embassy said on X.
The command is responsible for American forces operating in Central and South America that have carried out seizures of tankers transporting Venezuelan oil and strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats.
- Soldiers killed -
Cuba has been a thorn in the side of the United States since the revolution that swept communist Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
Havana and Moscow were close communist allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.
The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile sites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when Washington and Moscow came close to war.
During his first presidential term, Trump walked back a detente with Cuba launched by his predecessor Barack Obama.
Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, some of them assigned to Maduro’s security detail, were killed in the US strikes that saw the Venezuelan strongman whisked away in cuffs to stand trial in New York.
Kolokoltsev attended a memorial for the fallen men on Tuesday.
