WFP warns of global hunger crisis if Vladimir Putin did not remove Odesa port blockade

The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) on Friday, May 13 called for urgent “re-opening” of the ports in the Odesa city of southern Ukraine, warning of a looming global hunger crisis. Citing the grain supply disruptions, from the war-torn country to the parts of the world UN agency said that the port needs to go operational before the “global hunger crisis spins out of control.”

Millions of metric tons of grain are sitting in silos in Odesa and other Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea due to Russian troops’ strategic blockade. Grain bound for export is also stranded on ships as Russian troops encircle Ukraine in the maritime territories, not allowing the Ukrainian vessels to sail. Russia's blockade of the Black Sea ports has caused nearly 25 million tonnes of grains unable to be shipped. 

“Right now, Ukraine’s grain silos are full. At the same time, 44 million people around the world are marching towards starvation. We have to open up these ports so that food can move in and out of Ukraine. The world demands it because hundreds of millions of people globally depend on these supplies,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said. 

World 'running out of time'

UN’s Beasley warned that the world was “running out of time” and that the cost of inaction “will be higher than anyone can imagine”. He then continued in a statement on Friday, that he urges all parties involved “to allow this food to get out of Ukraine to where it’s desperately needed so we can avert the looming threat of famine”. With the current blockade of the ports, the Ukrainian farmers will have nowhere to store the grains in the next harvest in July/August. Tons of grain will be going to waste, warned the WFP, adding that the world will be struggling to deal with a “catastrophic global hunger crisis.”   

"It’s an almost grotesque situation we see at the moment in Ukraine with nearly 25 mln tonnes of grain that could be exported but that cannot leave the country simply because of lack of infrastructure, the blockade of the ports,” Josef Schmidhuber, FAO Deputy Director,  Josef Schmidhuber, had said, also demanding the removal of Russian blockade. 

According to WFP’s analysis, an estimated 276 million people worldwide are facing acute hunger since the start of 2022 that was sparked by the global pandemic. As the war started in Ukraine in February, that number is expected to now rise by 47 million people. The UN agency called for immediate removal of the Russian blockade, stating that  if the conflict in Ukraine continues, there will be the steepest rise of food shortage in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries. 

“Before the war, most of the food produced by Ukraine – enough to feed 400 million people - was exported through the country’s seven Black Sea ports. In the eight months before the conflict began, close to 51 million metric tons of grain transited through the ports,” the UN WFP said. 

“The disruption caused by the war has already pushed prices on food commodity markets well above the record highs reached earlier this year,” it added.