US aid workers 'lobbied for weeks' to save food stocks from destruction after Trump cuts
The food aid stuck in Dubai was fortified wheat biscuits, which are calorie-rich and typically deployed in crisis conditions where people lack cooking facilities, 'providing immediate nutrition for a child or adult', according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
The WFP says 319-million people face acute levels of food insecurity worldwide. Of those, 1.9-million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.
After Jeremy Lewin and Kenneth Jackson, operatives of the budget-slashing department of government efficiency were appointed acting deputy USAid administrators and began terminating food security programmes, USAid staff were barred from communicating with aid organisations asking to take the biscuits, two sources said.
A state department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was 'entirely false' that USAid staff were barred from communicating with aid groups, and that 'there was no direction given not to engage'.
Reuters, however, reported that a January 25 email sent by Jackson emphasising a 'complete halt' to all foreign assistance banned USAid staff from any communications outside the agency unless approved by their front office.
'Failure to abide by this directive will result in disciplinary action,' said the memo reviewed by Reuters.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio told legislators on May 21 no food aid would be wasted as USAid staff were waiting for Lewin to sign off on a deal to transfer the 622 tonnes of biscuits to the WFP for distribution before they began expiring in September.
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