One of the most recent United Nations reports maintains that a tenth of the world went hungry last year and that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could aggravate this problem, in addition to preventing the eradication of the phenomenon by 2030.
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This scenario is favored by the situation in Ukraine, one of the largest producers and exporters of food supplies in the world.
And it is that despite the fact that last week both countries, with the support of the UN and Turkey, reached an agreement in principle to unblock the ports and export the Ukrainian grain, it is estimated that there are still some 20 million tons of this input that cannot leave the country.
Without these exports, several countries, especially in North Africa and the Middle East, could see an unsustainable increase in the prices of the most essential grains such as corn or wheat, the basis of the calorie intake of hundreds of millions of people.
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This situation, in turn, can generate a sharp increase in migration to Europe. Given this, the institutions of the European Union and the governments of the bloc must begin to draw up a plan for that not too distant eventualitywarned last week Alija Kalnaja, interim director of Frontex, the European border agency.
Warnings in Europe
We must not wait until the crisis reaches our borders, we have to react before
Countries must therefore “prepare to receive refugees from other parts (not only from Ukraine) due to the food security crisis,” Kalnaja explained at a meeting with the interior ministers of the 27 member states of the European Union, on Monday. past, in Prague.
Despite the fact that Frontex does not have the best reputation within the block, due to the fact that every summer it warns of a new migratory crisis, the European Commissioner for the Interior, the Swedish Ylva Johansson, agreed that the lack of food and the rise in prices of available food also increases security risks and pushes people to migrate.
“We must not wait until the crisis reaches our borders, we have to react before,” he said.The United Nations Food Agency (FAO) has been providing data on the ongoing food crisis and inflation in basic supplies since before the war.
For negotiations that resume this week, the Russian government has said it will release the grain tankers only if Ukraine removes sea mines it laid to prevent a naval attack by the Kremlin. Ukraine, however, has not yielded precisely because of its fear of possible aggression.
The official Russian agency Ria Novósti reported, with information from diplomatic sources, that for the agreement to work, a security zone controlled by the UN and Turkey must be created, in order to prevent arms smuggling and provocations from both countries.
Will the migratory flow increase?
And unless the warring nations reach a consensus to prevent the food crisis, aggravated by the drop in Russian imports, the number of displaced people globally would far exceed 100 million, according to the head of the United Nations Agency. United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi.
Nevertheless, Despite the continent’s caution, history shows that the food crises in Africa in recent decades have not generated massive movements of migrants to Europe.
This is because those who are hungry do not undertake a long, difficult journey and for which economic resources are also needed, for example to pay the mafias that embark migrants in small boats to try to cross the Mediterranean.
The high flows of migrants to Europe in recent decades were due, instead, to situations of war or terrorism: In the 90s, migration from the Balkans occurred, while in 2015 and 2016 it was from the war in Syria and Iraq, devastated by Isis attacks. In recent years it has been since the war in Libya.
As for the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in the European Union, both Johansson and Kalnaja estimate that it returned to pre-war levels after 6.7 million people entered the EU.
The European Commission estimates that almost half, some 3 million people, have already returned to Ukraine.
IDAFE MARTIN PEREZ
FOR THE TIME
BRUSSELS
Twitter: @IdafeMartin
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