NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The United States humanitarian agency told The Associated Press it is horrified by conditions in Ethiopia, where local officials have reported hundreds of hunger deaths in recent weeks after the U.S. and the United Nations paused food aid for one-sixth of the country’s population over massive theft of the aid. The government, which largely controls the aid delivery process, dismisses as harmful propaganda the suggestion that it bears primary responsibility for the disappearance of aid. It has agreed to a joint investigation with the U.S. while the U.N.’s World Food Program carries out a separate probe. The U.S. and U.N. first halted food aid to Tigray in March, and in early June they extended the ban to the rest of Ethiopia, where over 20 million people rely on such assistance. Tigray was the epicenter of a two-year war that ended in November and killed an estimated hundreds of thousands of people.

Source: Ethiopian News June 29, 2023 08:16 UTC