Africans ‘at mercy of’ war in Ukraine amid Black Sea port blockade: AU chief tells Putin

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African countries are bearing the brunt of the brutal war in Ukraine as global food prices continue to rise amid supply shortage, African Union (AU) chief Macky Sall told Russian President Vladimir Putin during an in-person conversation on Friday. Appealing to Putin to reopen export corridors in the Black Sea, Sall stressed that “despite being far from the theatre of action, African countries are innocent victims of the crisis on an economic level.” Sall is also the President of Senegal, a country that has maintained a neutral status throughout the 101 days of Russian aggression in Ukraine. He has earlier urged Western nations for keeping food supplies to be kept “outside” sanctions.

The Russian President hosted his Senegalese counterpart in Sochi, Russia. The AU chief was accompanied by the Chairman of the AU Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat. “I thank Mr. Putin for his kind welcome and our friendly meeting,” the Senegal President wrote on Twitter. In a corresponding tweet, the AU chief informed that Putin had “reassured” him of releasing bulk cereal exports from southern Ukraine ports and wheat and fertilisers from Russia.

Putin blames West-led sanctions as source of food insecurity

The unending blame game over the source of imminent food insecurity continued through Friday after Putin yet again defended Moscow, saying that the West was behind the global shortage and price hike of food grains. This came after last Friday US President Joe Biden dismissed the idea, saying “this is a Putin price hike. Putin’s war has raised the price of food because Ukraine and Russia are two of the world’s major breadbaskets of wheat and corn.” While Putin largely expressed his solidarity with Africa, several experts, cited by BBC, have argued that he is using the looming food crisis to assert pressure on the West and in turn provoke them to scrap the imposed sanctions.

Africa ‘at mercy’ of the Russian war in Ukraine

The AU chief also portrayed a grim picture of the impact of the Russo-Ukrainian crisis on Africa. He told Putin that the “African countries were at mercy of the war in Ukraine and hungry Africans were the victims.” His concerns come as food prices have shot up to unprecedented levels not just across Africa but globally amid the 100-days-long running war.

The UN has warned that at least 18 million people are at the edge of facing severe hunger in Sahel and parts of Africa just below the Sahara and another 13 million in the Horn of Africa. This comes after the burgeoning war has blocked the supply of 45% of global wheat supplies that come from Russia and Ukraine, leading to an approximately 45% rise in global food grain prices.

Two staggering reasons behind the halt in food grain exports from Ukraine remained the loss of agricultural land and the Russian blockade at southern Ukraine ports. The export zones of Odesa, Mariupol, and Chernomorsk in the Black Sea have largely remained blocked since the conflict began. “Failure to open those ports will result in famine,” warned UN crisis coordinator Amin Awad during a briefing in Geneva.