A UN-chartered ship which is loaded with 23,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat set aside for millions of hungry people in Ethiopia docked in neighbouring Djibouti yesterday Africa Today News, New York can confirm.
The bulk carrier MV Brave Commander arrived in the port in the Ethopian city two weeks after leaving a Black Sea port in Ukraine, the UN’s World Food Programme disclosed in a statement.
‘The food on the Brave Commander will feed 1.5 million people for one month in Ethiopia,’ WFP’s regional director for East Africa, Mike Dunford, said in video footage provided by the agency from the port.
‘So this makes a very big impact for those people who currently have nothing. And now WFP will be able to provide them with their basic needs.’
Ethiopia, along with Kenya and Somalia, is in the grip of a devastating drought that has left 22 million people at risk of starvation across the Horn of Africa, the WFP said earlier this month.
The WFP said the wheat from the Brave Commander was being transported to its operations in Ethiopia.
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It was not immediately clear whether the delivery would be affected by a resumption of fighting between government forces and Tigrayan rebels in the north of the country.
Africa Today News, New York reports thatUkraine which is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, was forced to halt almost all deliveries after Russia’s invasion in February, raising fears of a global food crisis.
However, exports of grain, food and fertilisers from three Black Sea ports resumed at the start of this month under a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, brokered by the UN and Turkey in July.
The agreement lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and set terms for millions of tonnes of wheat and other grain to start flowing from silos and ports.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, welcoming the ship’s arrival and Djibouti’s role, said the United States will be ‘closely monitoring Russia’s adherence’ to the deal.
‘We call on Russia to immediately cease its war on Ukraine, which would do much to address the recent spike in global food insecurity,’ Blinken said in a statement.
According to figures late last week from the Joint Coordination Centre which manages the sea corridor, more than 720,000 tonnes of grain have already left Ukraine.