Joe Biden has performed greater than arm Israel. He’s complicit in Gaza’s devastating famine | EUROtoday

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President Joe Biden and his administration have been accused of being complicit in enabling a famine in Gaza by failing to sufficiently act on repeated warnings from their very own specialists and assist companies.

Interviews with present and former US Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department officers, assist companies working in Gaza and inner USAID paperwork reveal that the administration rejected or ignored pleas to make use of its leverage to steer its ally Israel — the recipient of billions of {dollars} of US army assist — to permit ample humanitarian assist into Gaza to cease the famine taking maintain.

The former officers say the US additionally offered diplomatic cowl for Israel to create the circumstances for famine by blocking worldwide efforts to deliver a couple of ceasefire or alleviate the disaster, making the supply of assist nearly unattainable.

“This is not just turning a blind eye to the man-made starvation of an entire population, it is direct complicity,” former State Department official Josh Paul, who resigned over US assist for the conflict, informed The Independent.

Israel has vehemently denied that there’s a starvation disaster in Gaza, or that it has restricted assist. It says preventing with Hamas, the militant group that triggered the present conflict when it killed 1,200 individuals and took over 250 hostages in Israel on 7 October, has hampered assist efforts.

At least 32 individuals, 28 of whom have been youngsters, have died of malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, in response to Human Rights Watch. The deaths of these youngsters, and the seemingly many extra to return, may need been prevented if President Biden had reacted extra forcefully to issues shared publicly and privately.

From the time of the primary warning indicators in December, intensive US stress on Israel to open extra land crossings and flood Gaza with assist might have stopped the disaster taking maintain, the officers mentioned. But Mr Biden refused to make US army assist to Israel conditional.

Instead, the Biden authorities pursued novel and ineffective assist options reminiscent of airdrops and a floating pier. Now, some 300,000 individuals in Gaza’s north are experiencing a “full-blown” famine, in response to the World Food Program, and your complete 2.3 million inhabitants of Gaza is experiencing catastrophic ranges of starvation.

The stage of dissent inside the US authorities company answerable for administering civilian overseas assist and combating world starvation has been unprecedented.

At least 19 inner dissent memos have been despatched because the begin of the conflict by workers at USAID criticising US assist for the conflict in Gaza.

In an inner collective dissent memo drafted this month by quite a few staff of USAID, the workers assail the company and the Biden administration for its “failure to uphold international humanitarian principles and to adhere to its mandate to save lives.”

The leaked draft memo, seen by The Independent, requires the administration to use stress to deliver “an end to the Israeli siege that is causing famine.”

Not performing upon repeated warnings like these was a political selection.

“The US has provided both the military and the diplomatic support that enabled famine to emerge in Gaza,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former high-ranking USAID official beneath each Barack Obama and Joe Biden who labored on famine prevention in Yemen and South Sudan, informed The Independent.

This investigation by The Independent chronicles the Biden administration’s repeated failures to behave forcefully in response to months of warnings of a looming famine. Those failures proceed to this present day.

Children are essentially the most in danger

Famine takes the youngest first. In Gaza as we speak, many moms can’t produce the milk wanted to feed their infants as a result of they don’t have sufficient meals to eat for themselves. People determined for any sustenance are resorting to consuming animal feed and boiling grass. Many households reside off one meal a day.

Arvind Das, staff chief for the Gaza disaster on the International Rescue Committee who has spent months in Gaza, described seeing extra severely malnourished youngsters because the months went on.

“Now it’s the norm to see paper-thin children and women, with literally no flesh,” he mentioned.

“I’ve seen children sitting in the corridors, infants and babies with no food, no proper drinking water, nothing. I have not seen that kind of severe malnourishment,” mentioned Mr Das, a veteran humanitarian who has labored Syria, Sudan and South Sudan.

An emergency physician from the UK working in a Gaza hospital close to Khan Younis informed The Independent by telephone that “children in particular are suffering massively.”

“We have children here at the age of 10 and 12 years old who have the weight of children aged four or five years old,” the physician mentioned. “There’s chronic malnourishment and malnutrition across most of the children – if not all of them – and it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see what’s happening to them.”

This lethal famine was foreshadowed within the first days of the conflict. Israel’s response to the brutal Hamas assault of seven October started with a crippling blockade introduced by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

“We are imposing a complete siege. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we must act accordingly,” he mentioned on 9 October.

Those phrases can be adopted by motion.

Israel launched its most ferocious bombardment but and a crippling siege on Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s bloody assault. Since then Palestinian officers say Israel’s offensive has killed not less than 35,000 individuals, most of them girls and youngsters.

Israel tightly restricted the supply of assist into the strip from these first days onwards. UN officers and assist companies informed The Independent that exhaustive inspections of vans, systemic limiting of deliveries and arbitrary refusal of entry of “dual-use” objects reminiscent of vans and provides that Israel mentioned may very well be utilized by Hamas within the conflict have exacerbated the starvation disaster in Gaza.

Interviews with over a dozen UN officers, assist staff and diplomats coordinating assist, additionally revealed that there are additionally restrictions on the supply of assist inside Gaza, piling stress on the north of the besieged strip. Fierce preventing and normal insecurity throughout the Strip all contributed additional to the slowing of assist deliveries. On quite a few events, individuals determined for meals swarmed assist vans as they reached an affected space.

Some two-thirds of Gaza’s inhabitants have been depending on meals assist earlier than the conflict, and greater than 500 vans entered the territory every day, together with gasoline. Between 7 October and the tip of February, the common variety of vans getting into dropped to simply 90 per day, an 82 per cent drop at a time when conflict made the necessity for assist a lot larger.

Israel vehemently denies there’s a starvation disaster in Gaza, or that it has restricted assist. The defence ministry unit tasked with coordinating with the Palestinians, referred to as the Coordination of Government Activities within the Territories (COGAT), has repeatedly informed The Independent there’s “no limit” to the quantity of assist going to Gaza which they “actively” facilitate. The Independent reached out to COGAT for touch upon these particular claims and has but to obtain a reply.

Vital infrastructure crucial for meals manufacturing was additionally destroyed by bombing. On 15 November, Gaza’s final remaining wheat mill was bombed and rendered inoperational — that meant no extra flour, and no bread, aside from no matter outdoors organisations might herald.

Israel’s in depth bombing throughout Gaza additionally made it practically unattainable to ship assist safely anyway. At least 254 assist staff have been killed all through the battle, together with 188 UN workers — representing the very best variety of UN personnel killed in a battle within the historical past of the organisation. Multiple assist convoys have come beneath Israeli hearth. UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee company, informed The Independent, that regardless of sharing GPS coordinates, the variety of vans and the contacts with the army, three of their assist convoys have been hit by Israeli naval artillery and gunfire.

The warnings start

Casualties from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza shortly reached into the hundreds, however the specter of hunger adopted shut behind.

By December, the 2 worldwide establishments utilized by governments around the globe to find out when famine is happening — the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network —had come to the identical conclusion: Famine was imminent, and threatened multiple million individuals.

Mr Konyndyk, who led USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance for 3 years, mentioned these warnings ought to have compelled the White House to behave urgently. If the identical circumstances have been showing in most different nations on the planet, he mentioned, it might have. But the US had stubbornly refused to do something that might hamper Israel’s conflict effort.

“When the warnings start signalling that risk, there should be a forceful reaction, both on the relief aid front and on the diplomatic front,” he informed The Independent. “Nothing about the Biden administration’s response to the December famine forecast demonstrated that kind of hard pivot toward famine prevention.”

What adopted was a sample of defence, deflection and outright denial from the White House.

Under questioning from The Independent, Biden administration spokespersons have routinely highlighted Mr Biden’s repeated requests for the Israeli authorities to open up extra crossings to help, and pointed to momentary will increase in assist vans getting into Gaza as proof of what they describe as his effectiveness.

What was left unsaid by these Biden aides was the truth that these piecemeal influxes of assist weren’t consummate to the size of the disaster. Hunger continued to unfold, and nonetheless the White House refused to make use of its leverage by threatening to situation army assist.

“Behind the scenes, my impression is that the Biden administration was pushing Israel to resume opening crossings to aid. But it was this posture of pretty extensive deference to how Israel was choosing to fight the war, while continuing to supply it with arms and not putting any real conditions on that,” Mr Konyndyk mentioned.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council informed The Independent: “Since the beginning of this conflict, President Biden has been leading efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas.”

“Before the President’s engagement, there was no food, water, or medicine getting into Gaza. The United States is the largest provider of aid to the Gaza response. This is and will continue to be a top priority to address dire conditions on the ground since much more aid is needed,” the spokesperson added.

Inside USAID, profession civil servants with in depth expertise have been horrified by the dearth of urgency from their politically appointed leaders.

Internal USAID paperwork seen by The Independent confirmed that workers have been passing their issues in regards to the lack of motion up the chain to USAID administrator Samantha Power and different senior leaders within the type of letters and inner dissent memos, usually to no avail.

“What was surprising to me, and deeply disappointing, was the fact that we were hearing nothing about imminent famine in Gaza,” mentioned a USAID staffer, who requested to stay nameless as a result of they’re nonetheless employed by the company.

Dissent memos — a sort of sanctioned inner protest by a devoted channel for providing important suggestions of coverage — are comparatively uncommon in USAID in contrast with the State Department. However, the USAID workers member mentioned they have been conscious of not less than 19 memoranda being despatched in objection to the dearth of motion by the company — and the federal government — over the looming famine.

Mr Konyndyk described it as “an extraordinary number,” and famous that he didn’t recall encountering a single dissent memo at USAID throughout his greater than 5 years there beneath Mr Obama and Mr Biden.

By mid-January, assist companies on the bottom in Gaza have been issuing determined pleas for a humanitarian ceasefire in order that meals provides may very well be delivered. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that 378,000 individuals in Gaza have been going through catastrophic ranges of starvation, and all 2.2 million individuals in Gaza have been going through acute meals insecurity.

“This is a population that is starving to death, this is a population that is being pushed to the brink,” the World Health Organization’s emergencies director Michael Ryan mentioned at a press convention on 31 January.

The identical day Mr Ryan described Gaza’s grim outlook, White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby defended the Biden administration’s determination to droop assist to UNRWA. Mr Kirby denied that reducing off help to the UN entity with the most important footprint in Gaza would have a detrimental impact on the humanitarian scenario there, and as a substitute claimed that the US was “working so hard to get more [humanitarian] assistance into the people of Gaza.”

Even now, the White House was targeted on giving Israel all the pieces it wanted to win its conflict towards Hamas.

UNRWA loses means to operate

Hunger unfold quickly over the subsequent month because the conflict raged on. On 27 February, three senior United Nations officers informed a Security Council that not less than 576,000 individuals have been now “one step away from famine.”

“Unfortunately, as grim as the picture we see today is, there is every possibility for further deterioration,” Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of UN’s OCHA, informed the chamber.

In one of the crucial lethal massacres of the battle, dozens of Palestinians desperately making an attempt to entry provides have been killed after Israeli troops fired on a crowd gathering flour from assist vans on 29 February close to Gaza City. The Israeli military initially blamed a stampede for the chaos, however in a later evaluate claimed that Israeli forces “did not fire at the humanitarian convoy, but did fire at a number of suspects who approached the nearby forces and posed a threat to them.”

“During the course of the looting, incidents of significant harm to civilians occurred from the stampede and people being run over by the trucks,” the Israeli military evaluate added. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed making an attempt to entry assist that day.

Before the conflict, UNRWA, the most important UN company working in Gaza, offered and distributed the essential requirements for individuals to outlive within the blockaded territory, reminiscent of meals, medication and gasoline. The US was by far the most important donor to UNRWA, contributing practically half the company’s yearly working funds.

But the US suspended that funding following allegations by Israel that some 12 UNRWA staff have been concerned within the 7 October assault and round 10 per cent of its workers had ties to militants. (An impartial evaluate led by former French overseas minister Catherine Colonna later discovered that Israel has but to offer any supporting proof of those claims.)

By the tip of February, UNRWA mentioned Israel had successfully banned it from getting into the north of Gaza.

At least 188 of its workers had been killed because the starting of the conflict, greater than 150 of its services have been hit — amongst them many colleges — and greater than 400 individuals have been killed “while seeking shelter under the UN flag,” the organisation mentioned.

The killings had a extreme affect on assist teams’ means to ship desperately wanted provides —  and safety circumstances for assist staff continued to worsen. Following an assault on a meals distribution centre in Rafah in March, UNRWA’s head Philippe Lazzarini accused Israel of a “blatant disregard” for worldwide humanitarian legislation.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centres in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” he mentioned, including that the coordinates for the power have been shared with the Israeli military.

Mr Lazzarini ceaselessly spoke out publicly towards Israel blocking humanitarian assist convoys.

“I’ve said it many times: this is a man-made hunger and looming famine which can still be averted,” he mentioned in March.

The Independent reached out to Israel’s COGAT for a response to those claims however has but to obtain a response. In earlier statements COGAT has “vehemently” condemned what it referred to as “false accusations that are being irresponsibly disseminated” that Israel restricts assist into or by Gaza. It additionally accused Hamas of hindering and stealing assist.  COGAT additionally rejected accusations that there was a lower within the variety of assist vans getting into the enclave.

“Israel assists, encourages and facilitates the entry of humanitarian aid for the residents of the Gaza Strip and for medical and other critical infrastructures in the Strip,” COGAT mentioned, including that Israel is at conflict with Hamas “not against the residents of the Gaza Strip”.

A easy answer

To humanitarians on the bottom, the answer to the issue was easy: a ceasefire was the one strategy to surge the quantity of assist wanted to stop a famine. Barring that, on the very least, Israel would wish to open up extra land crossings in Gaza and permit extra assist vans to enter.

But successive makes an attempt to dealer a ceasefire on the United Nations Security Council have been blocked by the US on behalf of its ally, Israel.

Explaining the justification for a 3rd veto on 20 February, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield mentioned an instantaneous ceasefire would jeopardise multilateral talks to dealer a pause within the conflict and the discharge of hostages held by Hamas.

In the absence of a wide-ranging ceasefire, humanitarian teams referred to as on the Biden administration to make use of its leverage to stress Israel to instantly permit a flood of assist into Gaza that might be essential to cease the famine.

Only the US, as the first backer of Israel’s conflict and the benefactor of its defence to the tune of $4bn a yr, had the leverage to steer Israel to take action. But Mr Biden had stubbornly refused to even think about conditioning assist, recalling his long-held perception within the significance of supporting the world’s solely Jewish state.

Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian organisation with dozens of assist staff working in Gaza, mentioned he had written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in October and urged him to create a world monitoring mission at Gaza’s borders to facilitate the supply of assist, as a substitute of leaving it in Israel’s fingers whereas it fought a conflict. His appeals fell on deaf ears.

“The diplomatic impotence has been astounding,” he informed The Independent. “Here are presidents and prime ministers travelling to [Israel] begging, urging appealing, and the answer is no. And then they just continue providing arms and support. Who are the great powers here?”

Mr Egeland mentioned the US ought to have recognized what would occur to Gaza when Israeli leaders threatened huge destruction within the first days after the Hamas assault.

“They knew about it, they still they didn’t condition their support. This was a major, a major mistake. And of course now that has spectacularly backfired,” he mentioned.

Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department in protest over US assist for the conflict in October, informed The Independent there was a “double standard when it comes to Israel” within the Biden administration — on all the pieces from weapons to upholding worldwide humanitarian legislation.

The administration had a bunch of instruments at its disposal to press Israel to stop its assist restrictions, he added.

“The Administration could have done so through the application of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits assistance to countries restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance; it could have done so through the withholding of arms shipments; it could have done so by supporting resolutions at the UN calling on Israel to stop restricting humanitarian assistance,” he mentioned.

Mr Konyndyk, who’s now president of Refugees International, made a public name in an opinion piece in FebruaryForeign Affairs for Mr Biden to “act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply.”

Speaking to The Independent one month after its publication, he mentioned that famine was seemingly inevitable with out swift motion from Mr Biden.

Within USAID, too, workers have been offended on the Biden administration’s repeated assertions that it was doing all it might to push Israel to permit in additional assist. The quantity of assist that reached Gazans dropped by half in February in comparison with the earlier month.

On 3 March, Vice President Kamala Harris made what was on the time the boldest declaration of the significance of humanitarian assist to Gaza. In remarks commemorating the anniversary of civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama, Ms Harris mentioned Israel’s authorities needed to “do more to significantly increase the flow of aid” and warned that there have been “no excuses” for not doing so.

And days later, Mr Kirby, the White House spokesperson, informed The Independent at a each day press briefing that it was “not acceptable” and “not the right thing for any purpose” for Israel to limit assist deliveries into Gaza.

But Mr Kirby additionally categorically rejected the concept Mr Biden ought to use the leverage of limiting weapons deliveries to pressure Israel’s authorities to permit assist to move.

The USAID worker described the administration’s insistence that it was doing all it might to cease the unfold of starvation as “very disingenuous.”

“I don’t believe that the President of the United States — Israel’s most important ally and benefactor — has so little leverage that he can’t force them to take meaningful steps to really allow in the amount of aid that is necessary to save lives,” they mentioned.

“It feels like there was no real effort to force Israel’s hands, in terms of ensuring greater access to humanitarian assistance,” they added.

After failing to steer its ally to permit extra assist to enter through land crossings, the US took the bizarre step of launching assist airdrops into Gaza.

Mr Konyndyk, who oversaw comparable humanitarian air drops to Nepal, the Philippines and Iraq, described the plan as a “major policy failure” on the a part of the Biden administration.

Airdrops are “the most expensive and least effective way to get aid to a population. We almost never did it because it is such an in extremis tool,” he mentioned.

“When the US government has to use tactics that it otherwise used to circumvent the Soviets in Berlin and circumvent Isis in Syria and Iraq, that should prompt some really hard questions about the state of US policy,” he informed The Independent.

Biden lastly takes motion

On 2 April, the hazard for these making an attempt to ship meals to determined Gazans was thrown into sharp aid but once more. A bunch of worldwide assist staff with the World Central Kitchen have been killed by three successive Israeli drone strikes in Gaza.

The non-profit humanitarian assist organisation based by celeb chef José Andrés mentioned their members have been travelling in vehicles branded with the charity’s emblem after they have been hit, regardless of coordinating their actions with the Israeli army.

In an opinion piece headlined ‘Let People Eat’ revealed within the New York Times within the days after the killings, Mr Andrés mentioned the strike was “the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels,” and accused Israel of “blocking food and medicine to civilians.”

The response from the White House was totally different this time. Mr Andrés is a buddy of Mr Biden, and a well-liked determine in Washington DC. For the primary time within the battle, the president raised the prospect that the US would possibly withhold its assist if Israel didn’t instantly take sure actions.

In a name with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu two days after the WCK killings, Mr Biden “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers,” in response to a White House readout of the decision.

The Israeli authorities responded instantly by approving the opening of three humanitarian assist corridors into Gaza, together with the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, which had not been open because the begin of the battle.

Still, the calls from assist organisations have been turning into ever-more alarming. A Human Rights Watch report revealed on 9 April accused Israel of “the continued commission of the war crimes of collective punishment, deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid and using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.”

At the identical time, USAID officers have been turning into extra forceful in sounding the alarm internally.

A cable drafted by officers on the company and leaked to HuffPost in early April mentioned that “the threshold to support a Famine determination has likely already been crossed,” and that the extent of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza was “unprecedented in modern history.”

A separate memo written by USAID officers for Secretary of State Antony Blinken and leaked to Devex discovered that Israel could also be violating a White House directive requiring recipients of US army help to allow the unimpeded supply of US-funded humanitarian assist.

Yet one other memo leaked to Devex by meals safety specialists was titled “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths.” It mentioned that “Israel-imposed administrative challenges are preventing the delivery” of lifesaving humanitarian help.

Mr Biden’s stress on Netanyahu appeared to have an instantaneous impact. More vans carrying meals and provides have been capable of get into Gaza in late April, and Israel lastly opened the Erez crossing on 1 May, resulting in the entry of greater than 200 vans per day for a number of weeks.

For some, it was an indication of progress. But for others, it confirmed that Mr Biden had the ability to have a direct affect on Israel’s actions at any time when it selected to make use of its leverage.

But as had occurred a number of instances all through the battle, the stress and the progress have been short-lived.

A famine wasn’t inevitable

The UN has mentioned repeatedly that by the point an official declaration of famine is made, it will likely be too late to stop hundreds of deaths. The declaration requires a painfully exact assortment of knowledge that’s not attainable to get whereas the north of Gaza stays reduce off by the preventing.

It was seemingly with that in thoughts that Cindy McCain, the US director of the UN World Food Program, turned essentially the most outstanding worldwide official to date to declare a famine in northern Gaza final weekend.

“It’s horror,” McCain, widow of Biden’s close friend, former Senator John McCain, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired 5 May. “There is famine — full-blown famine — in the north, and it’s moving its way south.”

To the humanitarian groups working on the ground, this was not an inevitable conclusion.

“This is an entirely preventable, human-made famine caused by lack of humanitarian aid and humanitarian access restrictions over 7 months,” said Louise Wateridge, communications offiver with UNRWA, in a phone interview from Gaza last week.

According to UN figures, more than half of Gaza’s population —some 1.1 million people — face catastrophic food insecurity. This represents the highest share of a population ever recorded globally. One in three children under age 2 suffer from acute malnutrition.

It is about to get worse.

Israel had for some months now publicly announced its intention to invade the southern city of Rafah, the last refugee in Gaza which is sheltering more than one million people displaced from elsewhere across the destroyed territory. Among that number are around 600,000 children packed into tents, crowded buildings and hospital courtyards with little more than tarpaulin to hide under. The city is the main hub for aid agencies operating in Gaza, and according to Israel, the last remaining stronghold of Hamas. The White House had previously expressed its public opposition to a full-scale operation in Rafah, given the humanitarian disaster it would inevitably cause.

But simply days after Ms McCain’s interview, Israel issued an evacuation order for 100,000 individuals within the metropolis. On Wednesday, Israeli forces captured the Rafah border crossing, halting the switch of assist by what was a serious conduit. It can also be the one crossing wounded or sick Palestinians can evacuate by.

On 5 May, it had closed one other essential crossing, Kerem Shalom, after an assault on Sunday killed 4 troopers within the space. While Israel says Kerem Shalom has since opened UN officers mentioned it’s too harmful for humanitarians to correctly entry. Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations humanitarian workplace OCHA informed The Independent that Rafah and Kerem Shalom have been “main arteries of the humanitarian operation” for your complete strip and that their closure has been “catastrophic”.

The transfer prompted a dramatic response from Mr Biden. For the primary time, he threatened to pause the supply of sure offensive weapons to Israel if its defence forces entered the town correct. Rather than dialling again their offensive, Israel widened the evacuation orders within the south and north of Gaza to have an effect on an estimated 300,000 individuals and started its assault on Rafah.

Meanwhile, the president has not positioned the identical circumstances on the supply of much-needed assist.

It is that discrepancy that has brought on a lot consternation inside the US authorities, particularly amongst these whose job it’s to stop individuals from dying of starvation.

“I believe the US to be complicit in creating the conditions for famine,” the present nameless USAID worker informed The Independent. “Not only has our response been woefully inadequate, but we’re actively responsible in large part for it.”