Food stocks, enough to feed 3.5 million people, are rotting in warehouses due to cuts in humanitarian aid from the United States. About this informsReuters agency.
Food stored in four warehouses owned by the US government has remained undistributed since the Donald Trump administration decided in January to cut funding for global aid programs. This information was confirmed by three former employees of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and two representatives of charitable organizations.
Part of the products whose shelf life expires already in July will most likely be disposed of – they can be burned, used as animal feed or destroyed in another way. Warehouses under USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) hold between 60,000 and 66,000 metric tons of food supplied by US farmers and producers. This was reported by five knowledgeable persons.
One inventory list (undated) points to four warehouses — in Djibouti, South Africa, Dubai (UAE) and Houston (USA) — that currently hold more than 66,000 tons of products, including high-calorie cookies, vegetable oil and fortified cereals.
The stockpiles are worth more than $98 million, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and confirmed by an aid official and a US government source. This amount of food could feed more than a million people for three months, or the entire population of the Gaza Strip for about a month and a half.
According to UN estimates, a ton of food — mainly grains, legumes and oil — can cover the daily consumption of about 1,660 people. According to the World Food Program, 343 million people in the world are currently in a state of acute food insecurity.
