UNITED NATIONS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2023) No ships under UN-brokered grain deal are seen around the coast of Mozambique while the grain products are more expensive, Permanent Representative to the UN Pedro Comissario Afonso told Sputnik.
"We don't see the ships moving from one place to another. But we see that the bread is more expensive. We see that the cost of our other products are very expensive, that are derived from the grain and so the cost of life is higher. It bites our stomachs," the Mozambican envoy said.
The envoy also said once the Ukraine conflict is resolved there will be a lot of grain.
Mozambique just concluded its UN Security Council Presidency for March 2023.
In July 2022, Ukraine and Russia signed a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to unblock shipments of grain, food, and fertilizer in the Black Sea despite hostilities. Moscow has repeatedly said that most vessels carrying Ukrainian grain do not reach the world's poorest countries and end up in Europe.
In late March, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the call to comply with all the provisions of the grain deal so that the products were sent not to "well-fed European countries," but to Africa, which currently received only 3% of all grain exported from Ukraine.
