The shipment of 7,600 tonnes of donated Ukrainian wheat arrived in Port Sudan this week.Ed Ram/Getty Images
In a shipment from one war-ravaged country to another, Ukraine has sent Sudan a delivery of wheat that should be enough to feed a million people for a month, ramping up its competition with Russia in the grain sector.
The shipment of 7,600 tonnes of donated Ukrainian wheat arrived in Port Sudan this week, just days after Russia announced the completion of its own program to send 200,000 tonnes of grain to Africa.
Last July, Russian President Vladimir Putin cancelled the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which had allowed the export of Ukrainian grain for a year. Before that, Ukraine’s exports were largely blocked by Russia’s invasion of the country.
A few days after cancelling the Black Sea initiative, Mr. Putin announced that Moscow would replace the Ukrainian grain with its own shipments of Russian grain to six African countries.
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Most of the beneficiaries, however, were Russia’s closest allies in Africa, including Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Central African Republic. Russian troops are active in the three latter countries, propping up fragile or authoritarian regimes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced his own grain donation program in November, 2022, accusing Russia of blocking exports and using hunger as a weapon. In its first year, the initiative sent 170,000 tonnes of grain to Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen, financed by contributions of US$180-million from more than 30 countries and international organizations. Somalia was the only country to receive grain donations from both Russia and Ukraine.
Last November, Mr. Zelensky said he was extending the program, with a further US$100-million in international support. The shipment to Sudan this week is the first since war engulfed both countries, but Ukraine says it plans to send a total of about 60 ships to a range of African and Middle Eastern countries, including Nigeria, Mozambique, Liberia, Mauritania and Lebanon.
Videos released on Wednesday by the United Nations food agency, the World Food Program, showed workers in Port Sudan lifting hundreds of giant sacks of wheat from the hold of a grain freighter, lowering them into trucks, and then carrying the bags into a nearby warehouse.
The war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which erupted last April, has devastated the country and forced eight million people to flee their homes, creating what the UN describes as the world’s biggest displacement crisis. About 18 million people in Sudan are suffering food insecurity, with five million in urgent need of assistance, the UN says.
Analysts have warned that Sudan is facing a severe risk of a famine this year, potentially killing a million people and causing emergency levels of acute hunger in 80 per cent of its population. Many parts of the country are inaccessible to aid operations as fierce fighting continues.
“The situation is becoming increasingly critical,” said Khalid Osman, the WFP acting country director in Sudan, speaking from the port where the ship docked in a UN video posted on Wednesday. The Ukrainian wheat will have “a significant impact” on the hunger crisis, he said.
“The humanitarian situation in Sudan is catastrophic but we need to act now to stop it from spiralling further out of control,” said another senior WFP official, Eddie Rowe, in a separate statement.
Germany provided about US$16-million to pay for the shipping costs from Ukraine and the distribution of the wheat within Sudan.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused US$40-billion in damage to Ukraine’s agricultural sector in the first year of the war, according to UN estimates. This was followed by 31 Russian attacks that damaged Ukraine’s grain production and export facilities in the second half of last year, the UN said.
More recently, the Red Sea crisis – triggered by Houthi forces attacking ships in the Red Sea – is adding to the Sudan disaster by delaying aid shipments from Asia and causing increases in costs of humanitarian aid.
Ukraine, however, has managed to boost its export capacity in recent months by creating a “humanitarian corridor” for ships in the Black Sea, hugging the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts en route to the Bosphorus Strait. Using this route, Ukraine shipped 4.8 million tonnes of grain in December.