Sacks of maize flour, beans and salt have been parachuting onto South Sudan’s Upper Nile state for weeks, part of a government-funded relief effort carried out not by the United Nations or an aid agency but by Fogbow, a U.S. company run by former American soldiers and officials.
The firm says it has delivered hundreds of metric tons of food to areas cut off by fighting since February between the army and local militias. South Sudan’s government hired Fogbow, hoping the operation would move faster than traditional channels and prove it can look after its citizens.
Critics argue the arrangement blurs humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence. Some residents refuse the rations, suspicious of bags stamped with the national flag. Opposition officials accuse the army of bombing the same region while touting the airdrops.
Fogbow, whose leaders previously worked in Gaza and Sudan, calls itself a logistics provider, not a humanitarian group. It coordinates flight paths with the U.N. World Food Program but chooses drop zones with the government. WFP says airdrops are a last resort because they can cost up to 17 times more than road or river deliveries.
The debate comes as global aid budgets shrink. More than half of South Sudan’s 13 million people face acute food insecurity, yet donors have pledged only a fifth of the $1.69 billion sought for 2025.
Fogbow’s rise reflects what former U.N. relief chief Martin Griffiths calls a “worrying shift” toward politicized aid. Company executives say they are filling gaps left by funding cuts and are willing to work within the U.N. system—provided someone pays for the service.
