The world is about to face an acute food crisis due to skyrocketing food prices, German Economic Cooperation and Development Minister Svenja Schulze told the Bild newspaper on Saturday, warning about a looming famine not seen since World War II. The minister has named the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s ongoing military operation in Ukraine as its causes.
“The situation is highly dramatic,” the minister told the German tabloid in a late Saturday interview, adding that, according to the UN World Food Program, “more than 300 million people” are already suffering from acute hunger and the UN has to “constantly revise”this data upwards.
Food prices around the world have grown by a third and have reached “record levels,” Schulze has warned, adding that the “bitter message is that we are facing the worst famine since World War II,”which could see “millions” die.
In its May 6 statement, the World Food Program has warned that “44 million people around the world are marching towards starvation” because Ukrainian grain cannot reach them, and called for the Black Sea ports to be opened so that this grain could be delivered to the needy.
Minister Schulze was quick to blame Moscow for the development by accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of “waging a war through hunger.” She claimed that Russia had “stolen grain from Ukraine” and is now taking advantage of nations depending on Russian and Ukrainian agricultural products by supposedly offering food only to those, who are “unequivocally pro-Russian.”
The minister has also claimed that the fact that 40 nations that are “home to half of the world’s population” did not condemn Russia's actions in Ukraine was supposedly a result of their "vulnerability to food blackmail." She didn’t offer any specific evidence to support this statement, though.
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