Food aid suspended in Ethiopia after ‘widespread and coordinated’ thievery

Humanitarian supplies are delivered in Tigray, Ethiopia, a region where nearly all of the 6 million population rely on aid. Photograph: Claire Nevill/WFP

Food aid to Ethiopia has been suspended after the discovery that humanitarian supplies meant for people in need were being stolen.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it is halting food assistance while it rolled out “enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people”. It comes a day after the US Agency for International Development (USAid) said it was doing the same, after a “countrywide review” uncovered “a widespread and coordinated campaign” that was diverting food assistance from Ethiopian people.