By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Food Programme suspended malnutrition treatment for 650,000 malnourished women and children in Ethiopia this week due to severe funding shortages, the U.N. agency said, with millions more at risk of losing access to aid.
WFP gets financing from 15-20 donors including the United States but many of them have cut funding this year, said Zlatan Milisic, WFP Country Director in Ethiopia. The agency has received exemptions from U.S. President Donald Trump’s aid freeze that has disrupted humanitarian work around the world, he added, but little for 2025 so far.
More than 10 million people in Ethiopia are gravely short of food, including 3 million displaced by conflict and extreme weather conditions as well as refugees from war-torn neighbouring Sudan, according to WFP.
Milisic said WFP had already reduced rations in recent months but that its operations were now at “breaking point” due to severe underfunding, forcing more drastic measures.
“We’ve been left no choice but to this week suspend treatment for 650,000 malnourished women and children — simply because we’ve run out of commodities and funding,” he told a Geneva press briefing by video from Addis Ababa.
A WFP spokesperson later added that those cut off were in various locations including the northern regions of Tigray and Afar, and that the U.N. agency is actively seeking funding to purchase more supplies to resume treatments.
Around 3.6 million people could lose access to assistance, including some being treated for malnutrition, if more funding is not received by June, Milisic added.
“I would hope that we will get the resources and put in place measures to really do our best to assist them. But if they don’t receive assistance, we will have serious consequences.”
Ethiopia’s food crisis has worsened in recent years as a result of a 2020-22 civil war in Tigray. The country also faced the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades in 2022.
WFP previously warned of a return of drought conditions to the region this year.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Mark Heinrich)
