The United Nations chief warned on Monday that the Russian war on Ukraine will have a deep impact on the global economy, and will severely affect already-struggling countries.
Lebanon, which is now facing the consequences of the war amid the increase of fuel prices and wheat shortage, is now seeing its breadbasket “being bombed.”
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters during the recent brief that Russia and Ukraine supply more than half of the world with sunflower oil and “about 30 percent of the world’s wheat”.
He added that grain and wheat prices have already been increasing from the start of the Arab spring in the early 2010s.
Antonio Guterres said that 45 African and developed countries import 1/3 of their wheat from the two Eastern-European countries that are at war. That’s in addition to Egypt, Congo, Burkina Faso, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Lebanon, that import 50% of their wheat supply from the two countries.
Guterres warned that the problem in the agricultural and food sector worldwide will cause “political instability and unrest around the globe.”
Lebanon is now negotiating with India and Turkey, as well as with the U.S. to find sources for wheat to prevent a food crisis in its country that has.
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