Firms led by US military veterans deliver aid in Africa and Gaza, alarming humanitarian groups
In South Sudan and Gaza, two for-profit US companies led by American national security veterans are delivering aid in operations backed by the South Sudanese and Israeli governments.
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The American contractors say they're putting their security, logistics, and intelligence skills to work in relief operations. Fogbow, the US company that carried out last week's air drops over South Sudan, says it aims to be a 'humanitarian' force.
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'We've worked for careers, collectively, in conflict zones. And we know how to essentially make very difficult situations work,' said Fogbow president Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer and former senior defense official in the first Trump administration, speaking on the airport tarmac in Juba, South Sudan's capital.
But the UN and many leading nonprofit groups say US contracting firms are stepping into aid distribution with little transparency or humanitarian experience, and, crucially, without commitment to humanitarian principles of neutrality and operational independence in war zones.
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'What we've learned over the years of successes and failures is there's a difference between a logistics operation and a security operation, and a humanitarian operation,' said Scott Paul, a director at Oxfam America.
''Truck and chuck' doesn't help people,' Paul said. 'It puts people at risk.'
Fogbow took journalists up in a cargo plane to watch their team drop 16 tons of beans, co,rn and salt for South Sudan's Upper Nile state town of Nasir.
Residents fled homes there after fighting erupted in March between the government and opposition groups.
Mulroy acknowledged the controversy over Fogbow's aid drops, which he said were paid for by the South Sudanese government.
But, he maintained: 'We don't want to replace any entity' in aid work.
Fogbow was in the spotlight last year for its proposal to
Since then, Fogbow has carried out aid drops
Fogbow says ex-humanitarian officials are also involved, including former UN World Food Program head David Beasley, who is a senior adviser.
Operating in Gaza, meanwhile, Safe Reach Solutions, led by a former CIA officer and other retired US security officers, has partnered with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed nonprofit that Israel says is the linchpin of a new aid system to
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Starting in late May, the American-led operation in Gaza has distributed food at fixed sites in southern Gaza, in line with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated plan to use aid to concentrate the territory's more than 2 million people in the south, freeing Israel to fight Hamas elsewhere. Aid workers fear it's a step toward another of Netanyahu's public goals, removing Palestinians from Gaza in 'voluntary' migrations.
Since then, several hundred Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded
The Israeli military has denied firing on civilians. It says it fired warning shots in several instances, and fired directly at a few 'suspects' who ignored warnings and approached its forces.
It's unclear who is funding the new operation in Gaza. No donor has come forward, and the US says it's not funding it.
In response to criticism over its Gaza aid deliveries, Safe Reach Solutions said it has former aid workers on its team with 'decades of experience in the world's most complex environments' who bring 'expertise to the table, along with logisticians and other experts.'
Last week's air drop over South Sudan went without incident, despite fighting nearby. A white cross marked the drop zone. Only a few people could be seen. Fogbow contractors said there were more newly returned townspeople on previous drops.
Fogbow acknowledges glitches in mastering aid drops, including one last year in Sudan's South Kordofan region that ended up with too-thinly-wrapped grain sacks split open on the ground.
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After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan has
South Sudan said it engaged Fogbow for air drops partly because of the
But two South Sudanese groups question the government's motives.
'We don't want to see a humanitarian space being abused by military actors ... under the cover of a food drop,' said Edmund Yakani, head of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization, a local civil society group.
Asked about suspicions the aid drops were helping South Sudan's military aims, Fogbow's Mulroy said the group has worked with the UN World Food Program to make sure 'this aid is going to civilians.'
'If it wasn't going to civilians, we would hope that we would get that feedback, and we would cease and desist,' Mulroy said.
In a statement, WFP country director Mary-Ellen McGroarty said: 'WFP is not involved in the planning, targeting or distribution of food air-dropped' by Fogbow on behalf of South Sudan's government, citing humanitarian principles.
Longtime humanitarian leaders and analysts are troubled by what they see as a teaming up of warring governments and for-profit contractors in aid distribution.
When one side in a conflict decides where and how aid is handed out, and who gets it, 'it will always result in some communities getting preferential treatment,' said Jan Egeland, executive director of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
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