Christian Post | 110518
[UPDATE: Nov. 5, 2018, 10:00 a.m.] World Vision responded further on Monday to the accusations. Its latest response can be found below.
Obama administration officials have been on the receiving end of much-deserved criticism for the decision to grant a one-time license to allow payment of taxpayers money to the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), a U.S. designated terror-financing charity in Sudan, once closely linked to Osama bin Laden.
However, as a July 2018 investigation by the Middle East Forum uncovered, World Vision, a large but controversial international Christian aid charity, was the primary recipient of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grant that ultimately ended up funding ISRA. World Vision deserves much of the blame, but so far, its actions have escaped serious scrutiny.
Newly available information strongly suggests that World Vision was waylaid by the Sudanese regime, one of only four U.S. designated state-sponsors of terrorism in the world, into doing its bidding. What’s more, to protect itself from bad publicity, World Vision has gone to great lengths to deceive the public about its actions.
World Vision’s response to the July 2018 revelations that it funded ISRA comprised a carefully worded statement claiming: World Vision found no evidence on the Treasury’s website that ISRA was a designated entity; World Vision’s association with ISRA was a one-time occurrence; and that World Vision took immediate action the second it discovered ISRA was a designated entity. All three of these claims are misleading.
World Vision stated that “At the time of selection, there was no indication that [ISRA] had any possible ties to an alleged terrorist-supporting organization.” This does not hold up to even moderate scrutiny.