YOUJNE (awp/afp) – The first humanitarian ship chartered by the United Nations to transport Ukrainian cereals was loaded Sunday with 23,000 tonnes of wheat and is ready to go to sea, announced the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure.
Present at the port of Pivdenny, in the city of Youjné, to witness the loading of the MV Brave Commander, Minister Oleksandre Kubrakov indicated that “the ship will be heading for Africa, Ethiopia being the last country where the cargo of 23,000 tons of wheat will be delivered”.
“I hope that more ships chartered for the World Food Program (WFP) will come to our ports. I hope there will be 2-3 more ships soon,” he continued.
On Twitter, he later added that the load was complete and the boat was ready to go, without giving a date.
The MV Brave Commander docked Friday at the port of Pivdenny, near Odessa. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure, it will leave for Djibouti, from where the grain will be transferred to Ethiopia.
This is the first shipment of food aid to leave Ukraine since agreements were signed in July by kyiv and Moscow, via Turkish mediation and under the aegis of the UN, on the export of Ukrainian cereals, blocked because of the war between the two countries.
“Obviously we expect more ships to leave Ukrainian ports to help people around the world. This is just the first of many humanitarian ships that will leave ports,” Marianne Ward, deputy director of World Food Program (WFP) operations in Ukraine.
The first commercial ship left on August 1, and a total of 16 boats have left Ukraine since the agreement came into force, according to the Ukrainian authorities’ tally, but no UN humanitarian cargo has yet took to the sea.
Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s biggest exporters of cereals, which have experienced soaring prices since the beginning of the war.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), a record 345 million people in 82 countries now face acute food insecurity, while up to 50 million people in 45 countries are at risk of starvation without humanitarian aid.
str-tbm/cco