By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At least six African countries are set to take delivery of free shipment of grain from Moscow, Russia’s agriculture minister, Dmitry Patrushev said on Friday.
The shipment totalling 200,000 tonnes is in fulfillment of President Vladimir Putin’s promise made in July, Patrushev stated in a statement posted on Telegram.
The six African countries include, Burkina Faso and Somalia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Mali and the Central African Republic.
While the ships heading to Burkina Faso and Somalia have already departed Russia, the rest of the four countries’ would soon follow.
Putin had promised to deliver free grain to the six countries at a summit with African leaders in July.
This came after Moscow withdrew from a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship grain from its Black Sea ports despite the war with Russia.
The deal, known as the Black Sea grain initiative, had helped reduce prices on the global market.
Putin however accused Ukraine of failing to get supplies to the countries in most urgent need.
Last year, Russia exported around 60 million tonnes of grain, according to Putin.
U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres called the promises of free grain “a handful of donations”.
Since quitting the arrangement, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian ports and grain storage facilities, and Kyiv says hundreds of thousands of tons of cereals have been destroyed.
Ukraine said on Friday, however, that it had managed to ship 4.4 million tonnes of cargo including 3.2 million tonnes of grain via a new shipping corridor it established in August.
