Report by Tom Ellis
ITN
It has emerged that £480,000 worth of taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid was stolen by militants linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia.
The Department for International Development (DfID) admitted supplies stored in a warehouse were captured by al-Shabaab and were then later set ablaze.
Details, revealed in DfID’s annual accounts, stated that there was no prior warning of the attacks.
The accounts said the £480,000 was written off “following the theft between November 2011 and February 2012, by al-Shabaab in southern Somalia, of DfID funded humanitarian materials and supplies from the offices and warehouses of partner organisations, to which DfID had provided funding to deliver projects and programmes”.
