USAID Administrator continues dodging questions on humanitarian crisis in Artsakh

ArmInfo. U.S. House Foreign Affairs  Committee senior members Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ)  called for concrete answers from U.S. Agency for International  Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power regarding the Biden  Administration's two-year- long failure to operate any U.S.  humanitarian aid programs in Artsakh, reported the Armenian National  Committee of America (ANCA).  

During the May 17th House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on  President Biden's Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) foreign assistance budget,  Rep. Sherman asked Administrator Power "We've got a blockade of  Artsakh, part of an effort to ethnically cleanse the area. People  need food aid. Does this area meet USAID's definition of a crisis?"  Administrator Power dodged the question, instead referencing the U.S.  State Department's non-earmarked funding for the International  Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been able to deliver  limited assistance through the Azerbaijani blockade to Artsakh's  120,000 indigenous Armenian population.  U.S.  funding is available  for all of ICRC's global humanitarian efforts, but Artsakh aid is  solely offered at the ICRC's discretion.  Video from the exchange  with Rep. Sherman is available here:  https://youtu.be/oDdKhxDK6Uw 

Rep. Smith, referencing Azerbaijan's Artsakh blockade, asked how  assistance is getting to Artsakh's Armenian population.  

Administrator Power noted, "I gather that an ICRC convoy did, in  fact, get in today. But access has been very, very limited. Many,  many staples are in short supply. [.] It should be coming in through  commercial means as it always was, but since the road has been  blocked and the checkpoints have been erected, commercial access has  not been possible. So we understand it to have been a combination of  Russian peacekeepers and ICRC deliveries when those can go in." Power  touted that, "USAID has sent two assessment missions to the [Nagorno  Karabakh] region and we are encouraging the UN to send an interagency  assessment mission as well."  

The most recent Artsakh aid assessment was in response to a provision  in the Fiscal Year 2023 spending bill that directs the Department of  State and US Agency for International Development to provide Congress  with an assistance strategy for addressing humanitarian and recovery  needs arising from the Artsakh conflict and identifies the US  "resources and programs," available for this purpose.  Though the  assessment was due on March 1st, the results have not been made  widely available to Congressional offices.