The first ship carrying grain from Ukraine for people in the hungriest parts of the world has docked at the Horn of Africa port of Djibouti. Many countries in East Africa are suffering due to deadly drought and conflict.
Although it is nothing but a drop in the bucket for the vast needs in the worst-hit Horn countries of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia – which will receive the first shipment. The flow of graine from Ukraine to Africa is expected to continue as another ship departed for Yemen on Tuesday. The UN Food Programme (WFP) is arranging for multiple ships to carry grain to the Horn of Africa.
WFP says this first shipment of grain will be shipped overland to northern Ethiopia, where millions of people have been affected by the country’s Tigray conflict, which has now flared up again.
There are questions now over how the grain will reach Tigray as fighting has resumed between Tigray forces and Ethiopian ones. Yet, Ethiopia’s neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions are expected to get grain.
WFP has said the 23,000 metric tons of grain on the first ship are enough to feed 1.5 million people on full rations for a month. But the U.N. has said 2.4 million in Tigray alone are severely food insecure and that 20 million people across Ethiopia face hunger, according to Africanews.
Millions of tons of food are needed for the Horn of Africa, WFP said. “In Ethiopia alone, three-quarters of everything that we used to distribute originated from Ukraine and Russia,” regional director Michael Dunford said.
Food security experts are of the opinion that it will take weeks for the grain to reach affected people in Africa, and might take longer for the influx of grain to bring down food prices.
