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Kyiv, Aug. 12 (AP) A ship docked at a Black Sea port in Ukraine on Friday to begin loading wheat for the hungry in Ethiopia. According to the UN plan, it will be the first shipment of food to Africa to unravel food stranded by Russia’s war on Ukraine and bring relief to millions of people around the world who are on the brink of starvation.
For months, fighting in Ukraine and Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports have meant mountains of grain produced in Ukraine, one of the world’s main granaries.
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This has sent global food prices soaring and caused starvation in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In recent days, several ships carrying grain have left Ukrainian ports under the new agreement – but most of the cargo is animal feed and is destined for Turkey or Western Europe under previous contracts.
United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the ship, called the Brave Commander, will take the wheat to the Horn of Africa country of Djibouti, where it will be unloaded and shipped to Ethiopia.
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“Wheat will be used in WFP operations in Ethiopia to support drought response in the Horn of Africa, as the threat of famine looms over dry areas,” he said.
“This is one of many parts of the world where Ukrainian grain and food products have all but ceased on the global market, making life even more difficult for families already battling mounting hunger.”
The vessel is expected to carry more than 23,000 metric tons of cargo — still just a fraction of the 20 million tons of grain currently struggling in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure. It docked in the port city of Yuzhny late on Friday, the ministry said.
Ethiopia, along with neighbouring Somalia and Kenya, is facing its worst drought in the Horn of Africa in four decades. Thousands of people in the region have died from starvation or disease this year.
Forecasts for the coming weeks suggest a fifth consecutive rainy season will miss for the first time. Millions of livestock, the foundation of many household wealth and food security, have died.
“Millions of households will struggle to cope with these shocks” in Ethiopia, according to a new assessment by the Famine Early Warning System Network. “Food aid needs are at record levels, with as many as 15 million people needing food aid.”
While one shipment will not solve the crisis, the WFP sees it as an “important step” in getting Ukrainian grain out of the country and into the worst-hit countries. Ethiopian officials did not respond to requests for comment.
On the Ukrainian front, however, fighting continued, especially in the eastern Donbass region, where much of the fighting was concentrated as the war approached six months. The town of Kramatorsk was hit by 11 rockets overnight. Seven people were killed and 14 others were injured in and around the town, which remains without gas, running water and electricity.
“Three-quarters of the region’s population has been evacuated because the constant shelling by Russian troops has left civilians no choice — either from their wounds or from starvation and cold in the winter,” the governor of the Donetsk region said. Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian TV.
The threat of a nuclear accident also loomed in southern Ukraine, where shelling struck near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
Shelling near the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye nuclear power plant continued overnight. Russian troops fired more than 40 rockets at a power plant across the Dnieper River. In the latest shelling, three people were injured, including a 12-year-old boy.
The neighboring city of Nikopol was also shelled, said Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko.
The UN nuclear chief warned late Thursday that “very worrying” military activity at nuclear power plants could lead to dangerous consequences.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged Russia and Ukraine, which have blamed each other for the attack on the nuclear power plant, to immediately allow nuclear experts to assess the damage and assess the safety and security of the massive nuclear facility. The situation at the factory “is deteriorating rapidly,” he said.
He noted that shelling and several explosions in Zaporozhye last Friday forced the shutdown of its power transformers and two backup transformers, and forced the shutdown of a nuclear reactor.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said authorities were drafting plans to evacuate residents from towns and villages near the factory.
“There is a high-level threat, so there are any possible development plans, including the release of radiation,” Monastirski said on Friday. “We’ve all seen the Russian shelling of the plant. It’s too bad.”
He said Russian troops had deployed weapons at the plant and denied Ukrainian nuclear workers access to certain areas of the plant.
“It’s hard to even imagine the scale of the tragedy if the Russians continue to operate there,” he said. “We have been convinced that there are no limiting factors. The Russian authorities intend to announce that they are prepared to take any action, regardless of the consequences.” (The Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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