“The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable,” stated an international aid organization.
The potential to nourish over a million individuals in some of the poorest regions worldwide for three months, while saving the lives of countless children, hinges on the ability to distribute $98 million worth of pre-packaged meals and other supplies currently stranded in four warehouses managed by the dismantled U.S. foreign aid agency under the Trump administration.
However, the food continues to sit unused in the storage facilities, with no solution in sight for the dire hunger affecting millions in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and other areas in the Global South plagued by severe hunger and malnutrition.
Among the 66,000 tons of food items, which include grains, high-energy biscuits, and vegetable oil, some are nearing their expiration by July and will likely be repurposed as animal feed, burned, or disposed of in other ways, as reported by Reuters on Thursday.
The warehouses, located in Houston, South Africa, Djibouti, and Dubai, fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Many employees crucial to the operation of these warehouses are set to be dismissed by July 1 as part of a series of extensive layoffs affecting nearly all of USAID.
Since the Trump administration’s takeover and rebranding of USAID to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), numerous contracts with suppliers, shipping firms, and other contractors have been terminated. The White House has criticized the agency, which operates on a budget of merely $40 billion, for its “substantial wastefulness.”
Under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and with DOGE, headed by tech mogul Elon Musk, targeting USAID as one of its initial major actions against a federal agency, the future of USAID hangs in the balance. The State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance, currently guided by Jeremy Lewin, a former DOGE staffer, has yet to approve a proposal to redistribute the stranded food stocks to aid organizations, as shared by two ex-USAID employees with Reuters.
Lewin, who is only 28, is in charge of completely phasing out USAID, an agency that has been pivotal in providing humanitarian aid in conflict zones and the Global South for over 60 years.
Max Hoffman, a foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, criticized the squandering of critical food supplies as the result of decisions made by President Donald Trump and Musk, citing inept management by inexperienced staff at USAID.
Significant portions of the stranded food supplies were designated for Gaza, where currently, half a million Palestinians face starvation, and the broader population of 2.3 million suffers from severe food scarcity due to Israel’s comprehensive blockade on humanitarian aid, reinstated in March after a brief ceasefire. Since the start of the year, acute malnutrition has hospitalized thousands of children, with Israel’s U.S.-supported offensive severely hampering local health services.
According to Reuters, the food sitting idle in these warehouses could sustain the entire population of Gaza for a month and a half.
Nearly 500 tons of high-energy biscuits stored in Dubai and set to expire in July could feed at least 27,000 severely malnourished children for a month, a former USAID official disclosed to the news outlet.
The food aid was also intended for Sudan, currently enduring a famine in at least ten regions amidst a three-year-long civil war.
Action Against Hunger, along with several other aid organizations, has had to reduce operations significantly due to a sharp decrease in U.S. funding; the organization reported last month that its halted activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo had already resulted in the deaths of at least six children.
Beyond the food in USAID warehouses, the U.S. company Edesia, which produces the peanut-based Plumpy’Nut used to combat severe malnutrition in children, has been forced to open an additional warehouse due to cutbacks in transportation contracts by USAID. A $13 million cache of 5,000 tons of Plumpy’Nut now sits unused but could potentially nourish over 484,000 children.
“The dismantling of USAID and cuts to humanitarian aid has been devastating and unacceptable,” expressed Oxfam America.
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