Aljazeera (AJA) News interviews Ambassador Robin Sanders on African Union (AU) Chairman Macky Sall's meeting with Russian President Valdimir Putin, as Sall, representing Africa's diplomacy, seeks release of wheat stocks being held hostage as Russian blocks food stocks and other goods on ships stuck in the Ukrainian Port of Odessa.
Sall, who is also President of Senegal, along with Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, encouraged the Russian President not to continue to have Africa be a victim of the current war. The Continent's current food insecurity crisis, which was already reeling from upticks in regional conflicts, and the impact of COVID, has been further hurt as the transport of global food stocks and prices of wheat and corn are impacted by the Russian-Ukraine War. The Region's ever-worsening food crisis is affecting daily some 8.4 million people.* Over the last 4 years, the African Continent imported nearly 44 percent of its wheat from Russian, valued at over $3.7 billion, and 12 percent from Ukraine valued at $1.4 billion. Furthermore, globally, Russian supplies about 12 percent of the world's wheat.**
*Source: Africa Live, TV June 6, 2022;
** Grain supply tops Putin-African Union head talks agenda - ABC News (go.com); Ukraine/Russia: As War Continues, Africa Food Crisis Looms | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
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