According to Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for Development and Humanitarian Aid (USAID), the decision was "difficult." The United States and the World Food Programme (WFP) announced Wednesday that they are suspending "until further notice" their food aid to the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, ravaged by years of conflict.

Some of this aid was "diverted and sold on the local market", justified Samantha Power. For its part, the Rome-based WFP said it had decided on a "pause in food distribution in Tigray, which will not resume until [it] can be able to ensure that this life-saving aid reaches these intended recipients".

A decision that does not concern drinking water

The U.S. government has raised the case with Ethiopian authorities as well as local authorities in Tigray, who "have expressed their willingness to work with us to identify those responsible and hold them accountable," according to USAID. However, the organization clarified that this does not concern nutritional supplements, the distribution of drinking water and support for agricultural activities in the region.

The amount of food aid involved was not specified, but the United States is the largest humanitarian contributor to Ethiopia. "This hijacking once again hits an innocent civilian population," USAID continued, noting that "millions of people live in acute food insecurity."

The pause comes six months after the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) signed a "cessation of hostilities agreement" on November 2 ending two years of brutal and deadly war. On Tuesday, the United States welcomed the "significant progress" made in the implementation of this agreement even if the challenges remain numerous.

During the conflict, Tigray and its six million people were long deprived of assistance. Since then, "84% of the region is experiencing a food crisis," according to WFP. Northern Ethiopia "has become more accessible", but aid is not reaching "the scale required", stressed the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) in early April.

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