Aid agency USAID has said it is pausing food shipments to Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region after it discovered that goods it supplied were being sold on the local market. USAID’s move comes just days after the Associated Press news agency reported that the World Food Programme (WFP) had suspended aid deliveries pending an internal investigation into the theft of food in the region, where 20 million people remain in need of humanitarian support. There has been no major return to fighting after a peace deal between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was signed in November. However, food insecurity has persisted despite the government lifting a blockade on the northern region that was imposed when the fighting began in 2020, in order to allow the free flow of aid.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA