WAR IN UKRAINE RAISES FOOD PRICES AND CAUSES HUNGER IN AFRICA

Mon 30 May 2022:

Families across Africa are paying about 45 percent more for wheat flour as Russia’s war in Ukraine blocks exports from the Black Sea, The Associated Press news agency reports.

It now costs Ayan Hassan Abdirahman twice as much as it did just a few months ago to buy the wheat flour she uses to make breakfast each day for her 11 children in Somalia’s capital.

Nearly all of the wheat sold in Somalia comes from Ukraine and Russia, both of which have suspended supplies across the Black Sea since Moscow declared war on its neighbor on February 24. The timing could not be worse: the United Nations has warned that a chronic drought in the Horn of Africa is putting an estimated 13 million people in danger of starvation.

Abdirahman has been trying to make do by substituting sorghum, another more readily available grain, in her flatbread. Inflation, though, means the price of the cooking oil she still needs to prepare it has skyrocketed too — a jar that once cost $16 is now selling for $45 in the markets of Mogadishu.

“The cost of living is high nowadays, making it difficult for families even to afford flour and oil,” she says.

Even the cost of therapeutic food for malnourished children could rise 16% over the next six months because of the war in Ukraine and disruptions related to the pandemic, UNICEF says.

African countries imported 44% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine between 2018 and 2020, according to U.N. figures. The African Development Bank is already reporting a 45% increase in wheat prices on the continent, making everything from couscous in Mauritania to the fried donuts sold in Congo more expensive for customers.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin pressed the West to lift sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, attempting to shift blame away from Russia and toward the West for a growing global food crisis exacerbated by Ukraine’s inability to ship millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products while under attack.

Russian allegations have been dismissed by Western officials. Food, fertilizer, and seeds are exempt from the sanctions placed on Russia by the US and many other countries, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND AP

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