The United Nations’ World Food Programme last week conducted humanitarian air drops in South Sudan as the country, less than two decades old, faces surging conflict while global assistance programs are roiled in a financial crisis and more than 2 million of the nation’s children are at risk of malnutrition.
The civil war in neighboring Sudan has displaced 1 million refugees who have flowed into the Upper Nile of South Sudan, where the WFP said it targeted its airdrops because it was the only way to reach the area. The emergency food deliveries serve some of the world’s most desperate populations as the U.S. — long the world’s top humanitarian donor — initiates a new foreign assistance strategy under the auspices of the State Department and officials express an openness to unconventional measures to get aid to those who need it.
The organization said in a press release it was the first time in over four months it was able to deliver food to the people of the remote region. WFP told ABC News it would continue to deliver aid from the air.
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“Airdrops are ongoing to reach the planned target of 40,000 people,” said Tomson Phiri, a spokesperson for WFP in the country.
The WFP airdrops, totaling more than 400 metric tons, follow those in the Upper Nile by Fogbow, a private American company working with humanitarian distributors on the ground.
Now defunct, the U.S. Agency for International Development officially closed its doors on July 1 when the State Department took over its remaining programs. USAID’s staff was downsized by 83%, and a “small number” were rehired to continue their work under the new apparatus, a State Department spokesperson said.
A senior State Department official said a new deft bureaucracy accountable to Washington policymakers could have more of an appetite for unconventional measures like airdrops.
“This transition has not stopped us from investing in sort of new and innovative solutions,” the official said. “And once we get through this transition and the programs are over here [at State], I think the next few months are really going to help indicate where we think our future vision is.”
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that $1.4 billion of funding for its programs is on hold or shuttered — leaving nearly 12 million refugees, or a third of the world’s displaced people, without access to its support.
In addition to the Trump administration’s reorganization of its foreign aid policy, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Germany have announced a scaling down of their own foreign assistance budgets.
That includes South Sudan. A UNHCR report on the toll of aid cuts on refugees says 75% of UNHCR-funded safe spaces, which has supported up to 80,000 women and girls who fled there, have closed.
Violence in the borderlands between the countries — which split when South Sudan gained independence in 2011 — leaves the world’s youngest nation in a precarious place only seven years after a cease-fire in its own civil war.
The humanitarian community has long wrestled over airdrops, which are costly and difficult to execute. They are considered a last resort for conflict zones unreachable by land or sea.
A U.N. spokesperson in Sudan said in a statement to ABC News that airdrops were “costly, complex and context dependent.”
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“While they can provide temporary relief in locations that are otherwise inaccessible, they are usually inadequate and cannot substitute for sustained, secure humanitarian access by road or land,” said Dan Teng’o, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Fogbow dropped 600 metric tons of food aid in the Upper Nile in June operations, partnering with a non-governmental organization that distributed it on the ground. In 2024, it managed to conduct airdrops amid the civil war — with USAID funding — in Sudan.
A State Department spokesperson told ABC News it was aware of reports of airdrops in South Sudan but that the U.S. “[has] not been involved in these operations.” It said it is “not working with Fogbow on humanitarian operations.”
In a concept of operations in June that was eventually scuttled, Fogbow proposed to conduct airdrops in Sudan with the Jordanian Royal Air Force. The plan would have targeted the drops for civilians in the besieged city of El Fasher, a flashpoint in the violence in Sudan.
Mick Mulroy, Fogbow president and an ABC News contributor, said he “wouldn’t disagree” with the U.N.’s characterization — a barge or a truck could scale significantly more aid delivery, he said.
“But we’re agnostic. You shouldn’t use the most expensive [option] unless it’s the only option. And in the places where we use it, it’s the only option.”
Chris Hyslop, Fogbow’s director of humanitarian operations and 15-year veteran of the U.N., including three years in Sudan, said aid workers in conflict zones are ready to administer aid — if they could get their hands on food and lifesaving goods.
He noted that “85% of all humanitarians who are working are actually from the country they’re working in.”
In Sudan and South Sudan, which broke away and gained independence in 2011, humanitarians are ready to turn funding to aid, Hyslop said.
“It’s extremely challenging. They’re there. They want to do more,” he said. “They’re able to do more, but they cannot, because the access, due to fighting, is so constrained.”
In South Sudan, the WFP said it can “deliver crucial assistance” if the country’s main river routes were reopened. They’ve been blocked since mid-April by active fighting, the organization said, adding it has 1,500 metric tons of food ready for transport once the routes are reopened.
