The UN ship carrying Ukrainian grain for the Horn of Africa arrived in Djibouti

A UN-chartered ship carrying 23,000 tons of Ukrainian grain for Ethiopia, whose millions of people are starving, arrived in the port of Djibouti today, the World Food Program (WFP) announced.

The ship Brave Commander had left the Ukrainian port of Pyvdevni on August 16, following an agreement signed in July by Kyiv and Moscow under the auspices of Turkey and the UN, which allowed the export of Ukrainian grain that remained stranded in the ports due to the war.

“The first WFP ship since February carrying Ukrainian grain has just arrived in Djibouti. We are now unloading the grain and will send it to Ethiopia,” WFP Executive Director David Beazley tweeted.

These 23,000 tons of grain “will support WFP’s humanitarian response in Ethiopia, where more than 20 million people are facing hunger,” the WFP’s Africa branch added in another post on Twitter.

A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Ethiopia, stemming from the crisis that erupted in November 2020 between the government and rebels in Tigray province. At the same time, the southern and southeastern parts of the country are facing a drought of historic proportions, which affects the entire Horn of Africa, the worst in at least 40 years.

According to the WFP, 22 million people are at risk of famine across the region, mainly in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Last week the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that forecasts for the October-December period show drier than normal conditions in the Horn of Africa, following four periods of rainfall during which the volume of water was greatly reduced.

“There is still no end in sight for this drought crisis (…) Consequently, we must obtain the necessary resources to save lives and prevent people from sinking into catastrophic levels of hunger and famine”, he had emphasized on August 19 Beazley.

Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s largest grain exporters. Ukraine’s grain exports had ground to a halt after Russia invaded the country and closed Black Sea ports, sending food prices soaring worldwide and raising concerns about possible shortages in Africa and the Middle East.

More than 721,000 tons of grain have already left the country, according to the Joint Coordination Center that oversees the sea lane through which ships from Ukraine pass.

Yemen

At the same time, WFP announced that a second ship carrying grain for Yemen left Ukraine today.

The MV Karteria left the Black Sea port of Yuzni and will stop in Turkey to have the grain milled into flour, the UN agency said.

Last year Yemen, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in the country’s more than seven-year war, imported almost half of its grain from Ukraine and Russia.

Currently, around 17 million people in Yemen are suffering from acute hunger, while only 42% of the aid requested by the UN for the country has been collected so far.