Ukrainian grain headed for Africa

A United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain set sail yesterday from a Ukrainian Black Sea port, marking the first departure of a World Food Programme (WFP) initiative to assist countries facing famine.

The Lebanese-flagged Brave Commander on Sunday left the port of Pivdennyi, in the city of Yuzhne, according to regional governor Maksym Marchenko.

It will head to Djibouti, where the grain will be unloaded and transferred to Ethiopia, one of five countries the UN considers at risk of starvation.

WFP Ukraine coordinator Denise Brown said the authorities were looking at using rail to augment the shipments of grain, and the Ukrainian agriculture ministry was also planning on opening a new truck route to Poland.

Ukrainian infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov was in Yuzhne to oversee the ship’s loading. “I hope that other ships chartered by the World Food Programme will come to our ports. I hope there will soon be two, three more ships,” he said.

Ukraine and Russia reached a deal with Turkey on July 22 to restart Black Sea grain deliveries for an initial 120-day period. As of sunday, 16 vessels had departed from Ukraine since the July deal, according to Kyiv.

UN secretary-general António Guterres on Friday announced the appointment of Amir Mahmoud Abdulla of Sudan as the UN’s coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, taking over from Frederick Kenney, who had been temporarily seconded from the International Maritime Organization. Abdulla has had a 31-year career with the WFP.

“We are definitely planning other ships to leave the ports of Ukraine, to help people around the world,” Marianne Ward, WFP deputy country director in Ukraine, told journalists over the weekend. “This should just be the first of many humanitarian ships to leave the ports.”

Source: Splash 247

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