From Gaza to South Sudan, private firms deliver aid and face questions

By Aaron Ross

JUBA (Reuters) -Fifty-kilo sacks of food hurtled out the open hatch of the cargo plane, scattering in the wind on their 1,000-foot descent to the northeastern flatlands of South Sudan.

For the past three weeks, an American company run by former U.S. soldiers and officials has airdropped hundreds of tonnes of maize flour, beans and salt into one of the world's most desperate pockets of hunger.

The campaign, which South Sudan's government says it is funding, has brought lifesaving aid to areas ravaged since February by fighting between the military and local militiamen.

It also offers a window into a debate about the future of humanitarian aid in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and cuts to aid budgets around the world.

The South Sudan contract is one of a growing list of business opportunities for Fogbow, an outfit of about a dozen people that first distributed food last year in Gaza and Sudan. Fogbow president Mick Mulroy said the company - which is owned by a former U.S. diplomat, a Marine Corps veteran and an American businessman - now has five project requests in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East.

Mulroy attributed the rising demand to donors looking to support humanitarian projects but increasingly hard-pressed to find implementing partners due to aid cuts.

"There's a substantial and growing need from people around the world at a time when we decided collectively to reduce the support," said Mulroy, who was a deputy assistant secretary of defence during Trump's first term.

For some aid sector veterans, the demand for Fogbow's services points to a worrying shift toward a more politicised aid model that they say sacrifices humanitarian principles like neutrality and, by extension, its credibility with beneficiaries.

In Gaza, a U.S.-backed outfit that Israel has authorised to distribute food in the Palestinian enclave, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), has bypassed the U.N.-led aid system and been accused by some critics of weaponising aid in service of Israel's war aims.

Asked for comment, GHF said it had found a "better model" to ensure food was delivered in Gaza. "Bottom line, our aid is getting in and feeding people while aid from other groups is getting looted and not being delivered," it said in an email.

Fogbow says it has no connection to GHF. But its operation in South Sudan is raising some of the same questions because it is working directly on behalf of a party to an active conflict.

The campaign has been complicated by its association with the government: the aid comes in sacks marked "South Sudan Humanitarian Relief" and emblazoned with the national flag. Some people have refused the food because they don't trust the government, whose forces are bombarding parts of Upper Nile, according to two residents, opposition politicians and a U.N. source.

"They expect people to take the food but we say 'no' to our people," said Manpiny Pal, a senior local government official in Ulang County, one of two in Upper Nile targeted by the airdrops.

"We need the food of the U.N. How do we know if that food dropped has something in it?" said Pal, who is from the opposition SPLM-IO party.

The United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP), which plans to distribute over 160,000 tonnes of food in South Sudan this year, said last month that no humanitarian aid was getting to the two counties by the usual river route due to the fighting.

Asked if WFP had considered airdropping food there, a spokesperson said airdrops were a last resort because they cost up to 17 times more than deliveries by road or river.

HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES

Some veteran humanitarians have deep misgivings about Fogbow's model.

Martin Griffiths, who served as the top humanitarian official at the United Nations from 2021 to 2024, urged against trying to reinvent the wheel.

"The humanitarian community is large and amorphous. It is also careful. And finally it is experienced. This is a well to draw on and I wish this was done by Fogbow," Griffiths told Reuters.

Michael VanRooyen, the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which researches humanitarian issues, said Fogbow and GHF were undermining an evidence and needs-based approach to aid.

"These organisations are not humanitarian. They are agents of a government, intended to fulfill political and in some cases military purposes," he said.

Fogbow officials say they are a logistics provider rather than a humanitarian organisation but try to align their projects with humanitarian principles.

Chris Hyslop, Fogbow's humanitarian lead and a veteran of the U.N. system, said he had near-daily contacts with WFP to discuss drop locations and ask for input.

He acknowledged complications from working directly with the government but said such concerns had to be weighed against the benefits of national authorities taking responsibility for their own people.

The WFP spokesperson said that while the agency receives a daily update from Fogbow on drop locations to deconflict airspace, it has no involvement in the operation.

South Sudan's government said it asked Fogbow, rather than WFP, to do the drops in order to expedite the rollout and show it was taking responsibility for its citizens.

"Here is a government taking up responsibility as a core mandate of that government," said Chol Ajongo, the minister of presidential affairs.

The government declined to say how much it was spending to distribute the 600 tonnes of food.

Fifty-seven percent of South Sudan's more than 13 million people suffer acute food insecurity, according to the U.N., but the country has only received pledges covering 20% of its $1.69 billion in estimated humanitarian needs for 2025.

'WE'RE GONNA TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT'

Fogbow's leaders express respect for the U.N. and traditional non-governmental organisations and say they would be happy to work as contractors within the existing system.

But they also think they can do better.

Fogbow CEO and co-owner Brook Jerue said the company's previous work had shown the advantages of its military background and willingness to innovate.

In Gaza, Fogbow advocated for sending food on barges across the Mediterranean from Cyprus to avoid bottlenecks at land crossings. Many humanitarians opposed the idea, arguing it would ease political pressure on Israel to open land routes.

"The humanitarian community was super upset with us because they were all pushing for land crossings, and we were just like, 'hey, we're gonna try something different'," said Jerue, a former U.S. Marine Corps pilot.

Fogbow dropped its barges plan when then-U.S. President Joe Biden decided in March 2024 to deliver aid through a U.S. military-built floating pier.

Fogbow went on to deliver 1,100 tonnes of flour through the U.S. pier and an Israeli port with funding from Qatar, Jerue said.

Later last year, it used profits from the Gaza operation to finance airdrops into Sudan's remote South Kordofan state before USAID offered to provide funding, Jerue said.

The State Department declined to comment on that operation. A spokesperson said the U.S. was not involved in the aidrops in South Sudan but voiced support for "burden-sharing among capable nations".

WAR AND SUSPICION

Fogbow's model is facing its sternest test in Upper Nile's Ulang and Nasir Counties, which the U.N. on Thursday said are at risk of famine in the coming months after fighting this year forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes.

Each morning and afternoon, a cargo plane carrying 16 tonnes of food leaves the capital Juba for one of two drop sites. The food is collected by workers from an independent local NGO and then distributed.

While the aid has reached around 30,000 people, the government-led campaign has faced resistance rooted in accusations of abuses by the military, including allegations made by local residents - and supported by Human Rights Watch - that government planes have dropped incendiary weapons.

The government denies this and says it does everything possible to minimise harm to civilians.

The SPLM-IO has accused the military of coercing displaced civilians to return home to collect the food.

Local residents have also questioned the decision to drop food into Nasir, a military garrison town largely deserted by civilians after heavy fighting in March, as opposed to areas with high concentrations of displaced people.

The government denied any coercion but acknowledged the drops into Nasir were intended to encourage people to return and show it could provide for them.

"For you to claim the legitimacy and the representation of the people of South Sudan, you must have presence in all those places," said Ajongo.

(Reporting by Aaron Ross; editing by Daniel Flynn)