Ministry of Cabinet of Ukraine Announce It will recently repay about $11.4 million worth of wheat to the governments of Ethiopia and neighboring Somalia, Shabelle media in Mogadishu reported on Tuesday.
Kyiv Independent is a pro-government Ukrainian media, report Ethiopia will receive 50,000 metric tons of free wheat on Saturday, translate The Shabelle media report also appears to be based on an official statement from the Cabinet Department.
The shipments appear to be part of a plan to export Ukrainian wheat, orchestrated by the UN agency World Food Programme (WFP), on which much of Africa and the Middle East depends. The extent of cooperation between Ukraine and recipient countries remains unclear as Ukraine is in communication with WFP, which charters the cargo ships.
Ukraine’s food crops and shipments have been on the brink for months as Russia’s eight-year invasion of the country widened from February. While Russia illegally colonized Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and began supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass, Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced in February that Russia’s military involvement in the country was sharp. The escalation, claiming that Ukraine “has no tradition” as a sovereign state “is entirely created by Russia”.
While Western media has invested heavily in covering the Ukrainian war, there has been relatively little coverage of Ethiopia’s brutal civil war, which observers say has turned into acts of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, including blockades and starvation. There are about 6 million people in the country’s Tigray region.
Egged on by Eritrea, the total shutdown of infrastructure, imports and communications in and out of Tigray has created a very real possibility of famine denounced by UN experts.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, leader of Ethiopia’s attack on Tigray and potential genocide, has won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. His award has not been revoked given his extensive coverage of his calls for atrocities committed against the people of Tigray – more specifically the former ruling Marxist party Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – or the Ethiopian army.
In addition to the civil war, both Ethiopia and Somalia are facing food shortages due to severe drought, which has made this year’s harvest short.United Nations has estimated In the Horn of Africa region, where these countries are located, as many as 22 people are at risk of starvation.
Ukrainian authorities comfirmed A ship carrying 30,000 tons of wheat set off for Ethiopia this weekend.
“The bulk carrier IKARIA ANGEL, chartered by the United Nations World Food Programme, sailing under the flag of Panama and carrying 30,000 tons of wheat, departed this morning from the port of Chernomorsk to the port of Djibouti, through which humanitarian cargo arrived in the African region, ‘ reported state media Ukrinform on Saturday.
Ukraine’s infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov told state media that Ukraine was shipping grain to the country to avoid a “food catastrophe”.
Shabelle Media reported on Tuesday that Ukraine would not accept payments from Ethiopia for wheat worth about $11.4 million, presumably the amount promised by the Abiy government or Somalia to repay them. The compensation is noteworthy given Abiy’s ties to the Russian government. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently visited the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Junewas warmly welcomed, although no one expressed support for the Ukrainian war.
Russia invested heavily in diplomacy with African countries, especially those with friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Ukrainian officials have had little success in seeking support in the region. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky reportedly spent months trying to convince the African Union to address its leaders, and when he finally video chatted in June, only four heads of state did. Live broadcast and let their subordinates listen, according to to the french newspaper Le Monde.
Le Monde In chats with anonymous diplomats familiar with Ukraine’s efforts, African leaders appear to be interested in only one basis of engagement with the country.
“I don’t know exactly what he expects of us, but our priority remains the supply of food and fertilizer,” said one diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. The French newspaper observed that the sentence was almost identical to Senegalese President Macky Sall’s earlier comments about the Russian invasion: “We are not really entering a debate about who is right and who is wrong. We just want to get food and fertilizer.”
In late August, the first ship to leave Ukraine for Ethiopia docked in Djibouti, a small country bordering Ethiopia.
We are officially connected!first @WFP The ship carrying Ukrainian grain since February just arrived #djibouti. Now let’s unload the wheat #Ethiopia. #BlackSeaGrain Initiative pic.twitter.com/bfXxAV116v
— David Beasley (@WFPChief) August 30, 2022
Ethiopia has 7.4 million people, according to the World Food Programme face Another 13 million people face lack of food due to the civil war due to “severe hunger” due to the ongoing drought.Neither the Ukrainian government’s statement nor the African report on free food indicate whether WFP will be responsible for distributing the food once it arrives in Ethiopia, or whether the Abiy government will control it, but past shipments arrived Ethiopian WFP warehouse outside the Tigray region.
Access to Tigray, which is believed to be experiencing the worst food crisis, is not guaranteed; UN officials often complain about the lack of access to the area. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus, a Tigrayan and TPLF member, told reporters that Ethiopia would not even allow him to send food or money to his family.
“I’ll tell you my own story. I have a lot of relatives there. I want to send them money. I can’t send them money. They’re starving, I know. I can’t help them,” Tedros said in August Say. “I can’t because they’re completely blocked. I want to talk to them. I haven’t talked to them in a long time. I can’t talk to them. I don’t even know who’s dead and who’s alive.”
Tedros has repeatedly argued that the Ukrainian struggle has received a disproportionate amount of attention compared to Tigray’s, which is racist.
