A US senator has sent a letter to the State Department, urging it to continue sending food and other aid to Ethiopia, after President Donald Trump's administration slashed foreign assistance last year.
Key programmes distributing life-saving food assistance, previously funded by USAID and now by the State Department, will come to an end in June, Senator Jeanne Shaheen said in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, her office said on Thursday.
“Without the necessary funding and commodity procurement, a humanitarian catastrophe for up to 3.1 million acutely food insecure people is anticipated, including over a million internally displaced in Ethiopia,” she wrote.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ethiopia was plunged into conflict in 2020 amid a power struggle between the central government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front. The war resulted in the deaths of up to 800,000, with about two million displaced. Six years later, a million people remain internally displaced.
Ms Shaheen urged Mr Rubio to fund the Joint Emergency Operation to avert a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
“Neither commodities nor market-based food assistance will be available to support the acute needs of Ethiopia’s most food insecure people once the JEOP programme ends this summer,” Ms Shaheen wrote. “The break in food assistance will coincide with the lean and rainy seasons of June, July, August and September when the number of food insecure people will double and heavy rain will make it extremely difficult to transport aid.”
Mr Rubio announced in March last year that 83 per cent of USAID programmes would be cut and the rest would be absorbed by the State Department.
