The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain, José Manuel Albares, has conveyed this Saturday the solidarity of the Spanish Government towards the Ukrainian authorities in its new humanitarian aid initiative «Grain from Ukraine» and recalled the contribution promised by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, against food insecurity in the world.
Under this program, Ukraine will send up to about 60 ships from the country’s Black Sea ports around Odessa by the middle of next year, the president announced. Specifically, the government agreed to send 125,000 tons of grain to Sudan, Yemen, Kenya and Nigeria in compliance with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski’s decree «On provision of humanitarian aid to African and Asian countries».
«Spain joins Ukraine and the rest of its allies in this program,» said Albares, who considered it «an honor to join this initiative, an immortal testament to Ukraine’s commitment against hunger in the world, even as it fights against Russia’s aggression and its indiscriminate shelling of export logistics infrastructure, which endangers millions of people who depend on Ukrainian products,» the minister made known.
Albares has recalled the data of the World Food Program (WFP) United Nations reflecting an increase in the number of people experiencing a food security crisis in the world, rising from 145 million in 2019 to 340 million in 2022 with particular intensity in sub-Saharan Africa.
The minister has taken the opportunity in this regard to recall the commitment of President Sanchez during the Food Security Summit, in which he announced the donation of 151.5 million euros plus the contribution of 85 million euros in credits from the Fund for the Promotion of Development (FONPRODE) of the AECID, for a total of 236.5 million euros for various projects in this area over the next three years.
«We stand in solidarity with Ukraine and its suffering,» Albares reiterated, «also in memory of the terrible Holodomor famine,» the food catastrophe during the Stalinist period of the Soviet Union «that 90 years ago killed millions of Ukrainians.»
