On May 31, the Sida-funded program that Islamic Relief ran in southern Ethiopia ended - where acutely malnourished children were treated and tens of thousands of people received help.
DN visited the area, which is one of the hardest hit in the country, in April. There we met six-month-old Bahasan, who was kept alive by the program paid for by Sweden. No one then knew how it would go for her or the other children who depended on the support.
Now three months have passed. The consequences of the stopped aid are clear.
Most of Islamic Relief's employees in the Liban zone - including nurses and aid workers - have been laid off. The local manager, Hassen Abdi, says that the stocks of milk substitute and nutritional cream were enough for a few weeks after May 31, but are now completely gone.
He promises to try to find out what happened to Bahasan.
During DN's visit, around 500 children queued to be screened for malnutrition. Now local leaders describe a completely different reality:
Screening of malnourished children has ceased. The stabilization centers lack milk replacer and nutritional cream, since the transports stopped. And no other aid organization has stepped in.
Hussein Mohamed, administrative head of Dheka Suftu district, lacks data to show whether acute malnutrition has increased. But he describes how children's conditions have deteriorated since the support ended.
- The situation has become very critical and increasingly worrying since Islamic Relief's program was phased out.
Aden Hassen, leader of Kersa Dula, another district in the Liban zone, speaks of a "disturbing development".
- Since the program ended on May 31, we have seen a sharp increase in severe acute malnutrition among children, and some children have unfortunately lost their lives.
No exact death tolls can be given. According to DN's information, there is a lack of capacity to follow developments in the villages.
Sida has justified the decision with the government's precautionary principle - that the authority must ensure in advance that partner organizations do not have links to extremism.
DN's review has shown that Islamic Relief was investigated by Sida repeatedly without the alleged links to Islam being able to be confirmed - and that the authority never actively sought any actor who could replace the support.
The International Medical Corps is one of the very few international aid organizations still working in this part of Ethiopia.
"The biggest concern is that there is now a gap between the humanitarian needs and the capacity that exists to meet them," writes Ashenafi Getachew, responsible for health and nutrition efforts in an email.
A few days later, Hassen Abdi returns with a message: Bahasan is alive. But she is still malnourished.
- She has recovered, but no longer receives any treatment. It can lead to delayed brain development and stunted growth.
Bilan Osman Jama, head of the humanitarian department at Sida, describes the information about dead children as "extremely unfortunate", but also states that children die as a result of a lack of humanitarian resources in many crises in the world.
"The Swedish humanitarian aid is not enough to cover even the most urgent needs in the majority of crises due to a dramatic underfunding of the entire humanitarian sector."
Sida has not visited the Liban zone since support was withdrawn.
The authority states that the partner organizations that have been selected have the capacity to operate in the most urgent humanitarian crises, but at the same time writes that it is difficult for other organizations to take over from Islamic Relief in the Lebanon zone.
"Sida has an ongoing dialogue with our other partner organizations in Ethiopia that carry out life-saving activities in other parts of the country where they judge that the needs are great."
