A new study says the United Nations and other aid groups have repeatedly looked the other way as aid intended for civilians is stolen by terror groups and dictators, from Hamas in Gaza to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Last month, researchers Dr. Netta Barak-Corren of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and Dr. Jonathan Boxman outlined the harmful impact of aid diversion in war zones, including Somalia, Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan, before presenting the likely case of diversion in Gaza.
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In Somalia, researchers found diversion “at every stage of the supply chain,” with nearly half of the World Food Programme (WFP) budget taken up by cartel transportation payments, “ghost camps” siphoning off aid, combatants’ family members signing up for assistance, and local “gatekeepers” taking aid.
In the end, the study assessed that only about 12.5% to 17.5% of aid reached Somalis in need.
A July 2023 internal report commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres flagged as “strictly confidential,” contained claims from Somalian internally displaced persons (IDPs) who said “they were coerced into paying up to half of the cash assistance they received to people in positions of power in the face of threats of eviction, arrest or de-registration from beneficiary lists,” Reuters reported.
In Ethiopia, researchers found that the WFP “looked the other way” at diversion, particularly as Ethiopian military personnel forced local mills to grind 30 metric tons of looted grain into flour for their soldiers.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) discovered the discrepancy and eventually suspended aid to Ethiopia.
Reuters also found that the WFP knew about aid diversion in Ethiopia “for several years.” In response to concerns voiced in 2024, Cindy McCain, WFP director, publicly stated that the WFP has “zero tolerance for theft or diversion.”
During the Syrian Civil War, the report states that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad “dictated the terms of humanitarian assistance.” This included siphoning off about 51% of aid through currency exchanges, and determining that rebel-controlled areas were too dangerous for aid distribution.
David Adesnik, vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that financing Assad created “a war of annihilation.” It was “not just that you’re losing some aid or wasting it, but that you’re actively making the conflict worse and causing more violence,” he said.
While the U.N. has reported the disappearance of about 1% of aid, the authors’ report estimated that around 60% of beneficiaries did not receive aid, which was given to Houthi loyalists or sold on the market by bad actors.
In Sudan, warring factions attempted to deny aid to adversaries. When WFP aid was looted, researchers reported that the organization failed to identify the looter, “afraid of being expelled from Sudan.”
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The researchers report that two leading WFP officials faced investigation “over allegations including fraud, and concealing information from donors” in Sudan.
In August 2024, the WFP told Reuters that its Office of the Inspector General was examining “allegations of individual misconduct related to irregularities in pockets of our operation in Sudan.”
During the 2001-2021 Afghanistan war, Barak-Corren and Boxman found that about 40% of aid was diverted by the Taliban taxing humanitarian organizations, demanding medical care for fighters, and placing members on humanitarian organizations’ payroll.
The study found that international supervisors who discovered the activities “avoid[ed] reporting to donors.”
Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow and editor of the Long War Journal Bill Roggio said he “suspects [diversion figures] are even higher. The Taliban was and still is adept at infiltrating aid organizations and diverting aid to fill their coffers.”
While the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has denied aid diversion in Gaza, Barak-Corren and Boxman note that diversion has been reported by WFP and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. According to the authors, UNRWA “should be seen as a streamlined aid diversion operation enjoying a unique level of international immunity and freedom from accountability.”
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The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) declined to respond to questions about diversion in other conflict zones or whether aid providers are incentivized to hide diversion from donors.
A UNOCHA spokesperson said that in Gaza, “we do not have evidence of systematic aid diversion from the U.N. to Hamas. The U.N. and our partners have strict monitoring in place, with oversight on deliveries when enabled to do so.”
The U.N. and humanitarian groups “have a range of measures in place … to mitigate the risk of aid diversion and provide effective oversight,” the spokesperson said.
Barak-Corren told Fox News Digital that UNOCHA’s “answer demonstrates the exact phenomenon we pointed out in our research, which is that the U.N. prefers to avoid and suppress the issue of aid diversion as a general problem rather than confront it.”
The U.N.’s own figures show that an estimated 88% of aid did not reach its intended destination between May 19 and Aug. 12.
An Israeli military official told Fox News Digital that their issue lies with Hamas “controlling the aid, selling it, getting money out of it, paying salaries, and including [recruiting] other youngsters to fight against us.”
The official explained that the U.N. is “not paying for it. The world is paying for it, and not being responsible enough in order to avoid Hamas’ hands.” In this way, the official said, “they are assisting Hamas and assisting to make this war longer.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
