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Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced the approval of opening 10 humanitarian corridors today, Saturday, to evacuate civilians from cities and towns on the front line with Russian forces, at a time when the United Nations warned of mass starvation in some regions of the world due to the war and disruption of supply chains.
She said a corridor to the besieged city of Mariupol had been agreed, although the authorities’ efforts to evacuate civilians from there under a temporary ceasefire had almost failed, with each side holding the other responsible.
The newspaper “The Independent” quoted Ukrainian officials as saying that the death toll in Mariupol exceeded 2,500 people, while the United Nations Human Rights Office reported the killing of 816 civilians in Ukraine since the start of the war until March 17, and about 3 million have fled From Ukraine, about two million were displaced from their cities, according to the same source.
The Ukrainian president had said that Russian forces were still blocking humanitarian corridors towards the city of Mariupol.
The Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister said that the city of Mariupol has been under siege for 16 days, and that more than 350,000 people are sheltering in shelters.
For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry said that it had opened humanitarian corridors on Friday, and that it was adhering to the ceasefire in all humanitarian corridors proposed by Kyiv.
supply chain collapse
Meanwhile, a World Food Program official said on Friday that food supply chains in Ukraine are collapsing, with sectors of infrastructure destroyed and many grocery stores and warehouses empty.
“The food supply chain in Ukraine is collapsing, and the movement of goods is slowing down due to insecurity and reluctance of drivers,” Jacob Kern, emergency coordinator for the Ukraine crisis at the World Food Program, told a news briefing in Geneva via video link from Poland.
He also expressed concerns about the situation in “besieged cities” such as Mariupol where food and water supplies are running out, at a time when WFP convoys are no longer able to enter the city.
The World Food Program buys about half of Ukraine’s wheat supplies, and Kern said the crisis caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine had pushed food prices up sharply.
“With global food prices rising to an all-time high, the World Food Program is also expressing concern about the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on global food security, especially in famine areas,” he added, warning of a “mass starvation” in some areas.
For his part, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhry, said that global food security is at stake with the escalation of the direct effects of the war on food export baskets, given that Russia and Ukraine are among the top 5 grain exporters in the world.
Fakhri called for an immediate halt to military attacks on Ukraine, before there are global and long-term consequences for food security that include everyone.
He stressed that there are tangible indications of the repercussions of the war that have begun to appear in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh and Iran, which import more than 60% of their wheat needs from Russia and Ukraine.
