(Bloomberg) -- The United Nations World Food Programme began a probe into the conduct of several staff members in Sudan over allegations of fraud and flouting rules of neutrality, people familiar with the matter said.
The WFP’s Office of Inspections and Investigations will scrutinize officials including the body’s deputy country director, Khalid Osman, said the people who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak to the media. Osman declined to comment.
Part of the probe aims to establish whether staff at the WFP concealed information from donor countries and jeopardized their impartiality by becoming too close to the warring parties. The UN has struggled to deliver food aid to millions of people who are facing famine after war broke out in the North African nation in April 2023.
The WFP “is aware of allegations of individual misconduct related to irregularities in pockets” of its operation in Sudan and “has taken immediate actions to determine if there is evidence of any wrongdoing,” according to a statement. The agency has also reinforced its Sudan regional crisis management response to provide humanitarian assistance, it said.
The probe, which was first reported by Reuters, is expected to widen in the coming weeks to include more staffers working on Sudan, the people said.
The UN has described the situation in Sudan, which had a population of about 46 million prior to outbreak of war, as the world’s biggest displacement crisis. Fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has left about 150,000 dead, according to an estimate from the US envoy to Sudan, and forced millions more to flee their homes.
(Updates with comment from WFP in paragraph four)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
