The UN World Food Programme has called for the ports of Odesa to be immediately unblocked for the export of Ukrainian grain, because it threatens to starve dozens of countries and hundreds of millions of their inhabitants.
“The ports must reopen. Millions, if not billions of lives are at stake, and we don’t have much time – the world demands it,” said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program.
He noted that in the Global Food Crisis Report 2022, the numbers are rising: We already had 276 million people in 81 countries approaching starvation before the war in Ukraine. Now 47 million more people will begin to experience severe hunger if we don’t act as quickly as possible, Beasley stressed.
“Ukraine’s granaries are overflowing. This threatens the collapse of agriculture in Ukraine and starvation in other countries. We have little time, and the price of inaction may be higher than anyone can imagine,” stressed the head of the World Food Program.
Earlier, former Economics Minister Tymofiy Mylovanov said that the UN is able to ensure the removal of food cargoes from the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhnyy by organizing the movement of ships under an international convoy.
