ISTANBUL — Ukrainian grain-carrying ships are stuck along the Bosphorus awaiting inspections before sailing around the world.
The number of ships sailing through this narrow strait, which connects Black Sea ports to wider waters, plummeted when Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago and imposed a naval siege. Under diplomatic pressure, Moscow has begun allowing some ships through but continues to restrict most shipments from Ukraine, which along with Russia once exported a quarter of the world’s wheat. And in the few Ukrainian ports that are operational, Russian missile and drone strikes regularly paralyze the terminals where grain is loaded onto ships.
A global food crisis has become one of the consequences of Russia’s war, contributing to widespread famine, poverty and premature deaths.
US officials are organizing efforts to help Ukrainian farmers get food out of their country via rail and highway networks that connect to Eastern Europe and by barges traveling up the Danube River.
But as winter approaches and Russia attacks Ukrainian infrastructure, the crisis worsens. The shortages are exacerbated by a drought in the Horn of Africa and severe weather in other areas. The UN World Food Program estimates that more than 345 million people suffer from or are at risk of acute food insecurity, more than double the number in 2019.
“We are now dealing with a massive crisis of food insecurity,” Antony J. Blinken, US Secretary of State, said last month at a summit with African leaders in Washington.
US officials are particularly concerned about war-torn Afghanistan and Yemen. Even in wealthy countries like the United States and Britain, inflation fueled in part by the upheavals of war has left the poorest people without enough to eat.
“By attacking Ukraine, the breadbasket of the world, Putin is attacking the world’s poor, increasing world hunger when people are already on the brink of starvation,” said Samantha Power, director of the United States Agency for Development. International, or USAID.
Ukrainians compare it to the Holodomor, the Joseph Stalin-engineered famine that killed millions in Soviet-ruled Ukraine 90 years ago.
Blinken announced on December 20 that the US government would begin granting blanket exceptions to its global economic sanctions programs to ensure that food aid and other assistance continue to flow. The UN Security Council adopted a similar resolution last month.
But Moscow has restricted its own exports. Sales of fertilizers, which are needed by the world’s farmers, have ceased. Before the war, Russia was the largest exporter of fertilizers.
Their hostilities have also had a major effect. From March to November, Ukraine exported an average of 3.5 million metric tons of grains and oilseeds per month, up from 5 to 7 million metric tons per month before the war, government data shows.
That figure would be even lower were it not for a deal forged in July by the United Nations, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine, in which Russia agreed to allow exports from three Ukrainian seaports. Russia continues to besiege 7 of the 13 ports used by Ukraine. Three ports on the Danube are also operational.
The agreement was for only four months, but was extended in November for another four months. When Russia threatened to quit in October, world food prices rose 5 to 6 percent, said Isobel Coleman, a USAID official. “Putin is pushing millions of people into poverty,” she added.
While food price increases have been particularly pronounced in the Middle East, North Africa and South America, no region has been immune.
“You’re seeing price increases of everything from 60 percent in the United States to 1,900 percent in Sudan,” said Sara Menker, executive director of Gro Intelligence, which tracks food prices.
Before the war, food prices had risen to their highest levels in more than a decade due to disruptions caused by the pandemic and widespread drought.
“There were a lot of structural problems and then the war made things worse,” Menker said.
By: Edward Wong and Ana Swanson
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6527252, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-01-11 23:50:08
#War #Russia #Ukraine #exacerbates #world #famine