The largest caravan of ships carrying grain and other corn products since the start of the Russian invasion left Ukrainian ports on Sunday for Europe, Asia and the Middle East through the mining waters of the Black Sea.
According to the United Nations, the four ships that were one of the world’s granaries carried more than 160,000 tons — about 176,000 U.S. tons — of agricultural products.
Ismini Palla, a United Nations spokeswoman, said the ships will ship 6,000 tons of sunflower oil to Italy, 45,000 tons of flour to China, 66,000 tons of sunflower oil to Iran and 44,000 tons of corn to the Turkish city of Iskenderun.
She said all ships would be anchored north of Istanbul and inspected by the Joint Coordination Center, an office where senior representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations work together to facilitate the safe transportation of grain, food and fertilizers. to make.
According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, one ship departed from Odessa and three from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk. An empty ship also entered Ukrainian territorial waters on Saturday, the first ship to arrive in Ukraine for loading, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said. said in a tweet.
The operation was part of a deal struck in late July to allow more than 20 million tons of Ukrainian products to leave the blighted country to be distributed around the world, generate revenue for Ukraine and help contain an impending global hunger crisis.
Four other ships have already left this week with more than 80,000 tons of products for delivery to Great Britain, Ireland and Turkey and Lebanon. On Sunday, the Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon, where the first boat, the Razoni, was to arrive, told Reuters that the ship was delayed.
Mr Kubrakov said the government is gradually moving forward to enable ports to handle larger volumes of work, aiming for at least 100 ships per month in the near future.
Experts have said that the problems affecting food markets are far from being solved, with a food crisis already so great that no intervention can solve it.
Still, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said supplying Ukrainian grain supplies was a “humanitarian obligation” that he hoped would “bring much-needed stability and relief to global food security.”
Nimet Kiraç contributed to the report.