Ship in Ukrainian port loads up with wheat going to Africa
KYIV, Ukraine — A ship docked in a Ukrainian Black Sea port on Friday loaded up with wheat for hungry people in Ethiopia. It will be the first food delivery to Africa under a U.N. plan to unblock grain trapped by Russia’s war on Ukraine and bring relief to some of the millions worldwide who are on the brink of starvation.
For months, fighting in Ukraine and a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports meant that grain produced in Ukraine, one of the world’s key breadbaskets, piled up. That sent global food prices sky-high and led to hunger in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. In recent days, several ships carrying grain have left Ukrainian ports under the new deal — but most of those shipments were animal feed and went to Turkey or Western Europe under previous contracts.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the ship will carry its wheat to Djibouti, where it will be unloaded and sent on to Ethiopia.
Ethiopia “is one of many areas around the world where the near-complete halt of Ukrainian grain and food on the global market has made life even harder for the families already struggling with rising hunger,” he said.
The ship was expected to take on more than 25,000 tons, according to Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry — still only a tiny portion of the 20 million tons of grain languishing now in Ukraine. It docked in the port city of Yuzhne late Friday, the ministry said.
Ethiopia, along with neighboring Somalia and Kenya, is facing the worst drought in four decades in the Horn of Africa.
On Ukraine’s front lines, the fighting remained fierce, especially in the eastern region of the Donbas. The town of Kramatorsk was hit by 11 rockets overnight. Seven people were killed and 14 others were wounded in and around the town.
The threat of a nuclear accident also loomed in southern Ukraine, where shelling has hit near Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Shelling near the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia
nuclear power plant continued overnight. Russian forces fired over 40 rockets at the city of Marhanets.
Three people were wounded, including a 12-year-old boy. The neighboring city of Nikopol was shelled as well, said Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The U.N. nuclear chief warned late Thursday that “very alarming” military activity at the nuclear plant could lead to dangerous consequences.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi urged Russia and Ukraine, who blame each other for the attacks at the nuclear plant, to immediately allow experts to assess damage and evaluate safety and security at the sprawling complex. He said the situation at the plant “has been deteriorating very rapidly.”
He pointed to shelling and several explosions at Zaporizhzhia on Aug. 5 that forced the shutdown of its electrical power transformer and two backups, forcing the shutdown of one nuclear reactor.