The first delivery of wartime UN food aid to Africa reached the Bosphorus Strait on Wednesday as part of a deal to restore Ukrainian grain deliveries through the Black Sea.
Maritime traffic tracking sites showed the MV Brave Commander carrying its cargo of 23,000 tons of wheat off Istanbul after leaving the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi on the shores of the Black Sea on Tuesday.
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The Turkish Coast Guard expects the Lebanese-flagged cargo ship to reach the Sea of Marmara south of the Bosphorus Strait on Wednesday evening before sailing next week to its final destination Djibouti.
The cereals will then be loaded onto trucks to be delivered to Ethiopia, in the throes of war and famine, under the aegis of the World Food Program (WFP).
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“Opening Black Sea ports is the single most important thing we can do to help (beat) world hunger
,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement.
“It will take more than grain ships from Ukraine to overcome world hunger, but with Ukrainian grain back on world markets, we have a chance to stop this global food crisis from getting worse
, ”
he added.
Food shortages
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has contributed to worsening food shortages faced by some of the world's poorest countries.
The WFP, heavily dependent on cereals produced in south-eastern Ukraine, estimates that 345 million people are facing a situation of "acute food insecurity" in 82 countries.
An agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine, and validated by the United Nations and Turkey in July, has allowed the resumption of the export of Ukrainian cereals.
It allowed the transport by sea of the first deliveries of cereals through a secure corridor sheltered from floating mines.
Almost all of these early shipments were for grain and other foodstuffs that were stored in Ukrainian ports and silos at the time of the Russian invasion.
Cereal deliveries will be on the menu for Thursday's meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Lviv, western Ukraine.