CAIRO, Egypt—Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could mean less bread on the table in Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere in the Arab world where millions already struggle to survive.
The region is heavily dependent on wheat supplies from the two countries which are now at war, and any shortages of the staple food have potential to bring unrest.
If those supplies are disrupted, “the Ukraine crisis could trigger renewed protests and instability” in several Middle East and North Africa countries, the Washington-based Middle East Institute said.
The generals now ruling in Khartoum after an October coup have not forgotten: In 2019 one of their own, Field Marshall Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s longtime autocrat, was toppled by his military under pressure from mass demonstrations triggered by a tripling of the bread price.
Sudan is already facing regular anti-coup protests but seems to have taken the initiative to avoid demonstrations over bread.
When Russia’s invasion began on Thursday, the second-highest figure in Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council was in Moscow to discuss trade ties.
Bread is already a luxury for millions in Yemen, where a seven-year war has pushed the country to the brink of famine.
“Most people can barely afford the basic foods,” and the war in Ukraine will only “make things worse,” Walid Salah, 35, a civil servant in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, told AFP.
Russia is the world’s top wheat exporter and Ukraine the fourth, according to estimates by the US Department of Agriculture.
Moscow’s invasion pushed the wheat price far above its previous record high in European trading to 344 euros ($384) a ton on Thursday.
David Beasley, the World Food Program’s executive director, said the Ukraine-Russia area provides half the agency’s grains. The war, he said, “is going to have a dramatic impact.”
WFP says 12.4 million people in conflict-ravaged Syria are also struggling with food insecurity. AFP
Before its civil war began in 2011, Syria produced enough wheat to feed its population but harvests then plunged and led to increased reliance on imports.
The Damascus regime is a staunch ally of Moscow which backed it militarily during the war.
“Syria imported some 1.5 million tons of wheat last year, largely from Russia,” The Syria Report, an economic publication, said this month.
Damascus says it is now working to distribute the stocks to use them over two months.
Supplies in neighboring Lebanon won’t last that long.
The country is gripped by a financial crisis which has left more than 80 percent of the population in poverty, and a 2020 port explosion damaged large parts of Beirut including silos containing 45,000 tons of grain.
Lebanon’s current stock, in addition to five ships from Ukraine waiting to be offloaded, “can only last for one month and a half,” said Ahmad Hoteit, the representative of Lebanon’s wheat importers.