---- Title: The fallout of Russia’s grain blockade ---- ... A long blockade will worsen food shortages in the Middle East and North Africa, sparking a migration crisis and leading to calls for an end to war. ---- Image Caption: Russia and Ukraine blame each other for placing mines in the waters at the latter's ports ---- ... The alarm on Ahmed Karim Khalife’s phone is set for 6am, so the 22-year-old budding architect can join the queue that starts forming early outside his neighbourhood bakery in Beirut. The shop opens at about 7:30am, and nowadays, often runs out of bread by 9am, said Khalife. “If I don’t wake up on time, my family might not get bread,” he said. Lebanon’s grinding economic crisis has driven inflation up over the past three years, and the giant explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020 destroyed the country’s biggest grain silos, hobbling its ability to store wheat. Now, Russia’s unrelenting blockade of the Black Sea amid the war in Ukraine – where Lebanon imports more than 60 percent of its wheat – is deepening the Middle Eastern nation’s food crisis, upending the lives of families like Khalife’s. The shuttering of Ukraine’s primary maritime gateway to the world is also turning Lebanon’s strife into a portent for what multiple wheat-importing nations might soon face, experts are warning. Moscow has accused Kyiv of mining the waters outside its ports to deter amphibious attacks, while Ukraine has, in turn, blamed Russia for placing the mines. To strangle Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, Russia has also parked warships outside ports that are still under the control of the government in Kyiv. The result: By mid-May, 20 million tonnes of grain were stuck in Ukraine, the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter. The European Union has pitched alternative “solidarity routes” over land. But these can at best offset a fraction of the volumes that would otherwise have travelled through the Black Sea, say analysts. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s piled-up grains could reach 75 million tonnes by the fall, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says – even as the United Nations has cautioned that 49 million people around the world could face famine-like conditions this year. ---- Image Caption: Russia and Ukraine's main exports ---- ...
---- Title: The fallout of Russia’s grain blockade ---- ... A long blockade will worsen food shortages in the Middle East and North Africa, sparking a migration crisis and leading to calls for an end to war. ---- Image Caption: Russia and Ukraine blame each other for placing mines in the waters at the latter's ports ---- ... The alarm on Ahmed Karim Khalife’s phone is set for 6am, so the 22-year-old budding architect can join the queue that starts forming early outside his neighbourhood bakery in Beirut. The shop opens at about 7:30am, and nowadays, often runs out of bread by 9am, said Khalife. “If I don’t wake up on time, my family might not get bread,” he said. Lebanon’s grinding economic crisis has driven inflation up over the past three years, and the giant explosion at Beirut’s port in 2020 destroyed the country’s biggest grain silos, hobbling its ability to store wheat. Now, Russia’s unrelenting blockade of the Black Sea amid the war in Ukraine – where Lebanon imports more than 60 percent of its wheat – is deepening the Middle Eastern nation’s food crisis, upending the lives of families like Khalife’s. The shuttering of Ukraine’s primary maritime gateway to the world is also turning Lebanon’s strife into a portent for what multiple wheat-importing nations might soon face, experts are warning. Moscow has accused Kyiv of mining the waters outside its ports to deter amphibious attacks, while Ukraine has, in turn, blamed Russia for placing the mines. To strangle Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, Russia has also parked warships outside ports that are still under the control of the government in Kyiv. The result: By mid-May, 20 million tonnes of grain were stuck in Ukraine, the world’s fifth-largest wheat exporter. The European Union has pitched alternative “solidarity routes” over land. But these can at best offset a fraction of the volumes that would otherwise have travelled through the Black Sea, say analysts. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s piled-up grains could reach 75 million tonnes by the fall, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says – even as the United Nations has cautioned that 49 million people around the world could face famine-like conditions this year. ---- Image Caption: Russia and Ukraine's main exports ---- ...