According to the director of the commision of enquiry, investigations launched by the interim regional authorities in Tigray into the misappropriation of food aid in this part of Ethiopia have named 186 suspects, including members of the armed forces and charity organisations.
The World Food Programme (WFP) of the UN and USAID, the humanitarian arm of the US government, jointly declared on May 3 that their food assistance to Tigray will be suspended indefinitely as a result of the thefts.
On June 8, both then decided to apply this judgement to the entire nation of Ethiopia, with USAID referring to a “widespread and coordinated” diversion of food supplies.
According to Tigrai TV, the official media outlet of the Tigray regional authorities, which cited an interview with General Fiseha Kidanu, head of the Commision of Enquiry, on Wednesday, “five entities, the Eritrean government, the Ethiopian federal government, the Tigray regional authorities, the coordinators of the displaced persons camps, and humanitarian workers, took part” in these diversions.
General Fiseha stated that “seven of the 186 suspects have already been incarcerated” without identifying the organizations to which the identified individuals belong.
Tigray was the scene of a bloody struggle between the Ethiopian federal government and the local authorities who had joined the rebellion between November 2020 and November 2022, during which the territory was closed off from the outside world for several months and denied of humanitarian help.
The Ethiopian federal army was supported militarily in Tigray by the Ethiopian army as well as forces from nearby Ethiopian districts. All parties to the battle have been charged with several violent crimes.
The interim regional administration’s president, Getachew Reda, declared on May 3 that he had begun a “investigation to ensure that all those responsible are held accountable” “in view of the seriousness of the problem and the accumulation of evidence.”
The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed on Thursday that a “appropriate investigation will be carried out” at the federal level in accordance with the “agreement reached between the American and Ethiopian governments” in the wake of the USAID declaration.
Meles Alem, a spokesman for the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated during a press conference on Thursday that “this will not prevent certain entities from wanting to use” the misappropriation of aid “as a tool for diplomatic pressure.”
At the end of May, the UN’s OCHA agency projected that due to violence and a severe drought in the Horn of Africa, over 20 million people, or 16% of the 120 million Ethiopians, were dependent on food aid.
