During a visit to the port city of Odessa, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that grain exports by ship across the Black Sea would soon begin. “I think it starts today or tomorrow,” the 44-year-old said in a video message published on his Telegram channel on Friday. It will be the first grain ship since Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began in February.
“The most important thing for us is that the port and the people work,” said the head of state. The video showed the ship “Polarnet” under the Turkish flag being loaded in the port of Chornomorsk near Odessa. The grain is from a Ukrainian company. The Ministry of Infrastructure is now waiting for a signal from the United Nations and Turkey for the start. “It is important for us that Ukraine remains a guarantor of world food safety,” emphasized Zelenskyy
According to the deputy head of the presidential administration Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a total of 16 ships are currently being loaded with grain in the ports of Odessa. The total payload is 580,000 tons. “They will soon be leaving for their destinations,” said Tymoshenko.
As early as Wednesday, three Ukrainian ports resumed operations as a result of the agreement to export grain across the Black Sea. The Ukrainian naval forces announced on Wednesday that these were the ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyj. The ships were to go out to sea in caravans. However, “painful work” is still necessary for preparation, the military restricted in advance. At the time, they were still dampening expectations of a rapid resumption of exports.
The shipping routes, for example, should have been checked for underwater obstacles, it said. In addition, special navigation aids have been set up for safe ship movements, it said. The joint coordination center for shipping traffic of the United Nations, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia also began work in Istanbul, Turkey last Wednesday.
On Friday last week, wartime opponents Ukraine and Russia signed an agreement with the UN and Turkey to allow grain exports from Ukraine from the three ports. According to Ukrainian sources, more than 20 million tons of grain from last year’s harvest are still waiting to be exported. Port operations were suspended for security reasons after the Russian invasion at the end of February. Ukraine had also mined its coast to protect against Russian landing operations. The UN feared increasing hunger crises due to the lack of grain deliveries.
As a result of armed conflicts, climate change and development deficits, around 811 million people are currently starving worldwide. For many years there have been continuous improvements in the fight against hunger, but since 2014 the trend has been reversed: multiple crises are causing the number of hungry people to continue to rise,” said an annual report by Welthungerhilfe presented this year. Rising food prices exacerbated food insecurity.
According to their previously presented Global Hunger Index, almost 30 million men, women and children are at risk of starvation in 2020. The international goal of eliminating hunger in the world by 2030 will not be achieved if humanity continues as before.
According to the index, African countries south of the Sahara and southern Asia are particularly affected by famine. Somalia scores the worst on the 100-point scale, at 50.8, meaning the situation there is “serious”. The situation in the Central African Republic (43), Chad (39.6), the Democratic Republic of Congo (39), Madagascar (36.3) and Yemen (45.1) is classified as “very serious”. According to the Index, 47 countries are now unlikely to reach low levels of hunger by 2030.
The outgoing Development Minister Müller told the “Augsburger Allgemeine” that the consequences of the corona pandemic and many conflicts had led to a negative trend reversal. “Millions of people are out on the streets without work, supply chains are broken, food prices are rising.” The situation is being exacerbated by climate change. People who no longer have anything to eat leave their homes and there are distribution conflicts.
15,000 children starve to death every day, said the 66-year-old CSU politician, who is no longer a member of the newly elected Bundestag and will take over the management of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Organizations and relief organizations would have to be adequately funded to fight global hunger.