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Vladimir
Putin is deliberately starving the people of Ukraine as “a weapon of war,” a UN
official said Sunday. “We've seen food
depots that have been blown away,” the executive director of the United Nations
World Food Programme, David Beasley, said on CBS's Face The Nation April
17. Food
aid is reaching some parts of Ukraine, he said, but Russia is blocking access
in others. “There are places that we can't reach
like Mariupol and other places where Russian forces have besieged the city.” Beasley,
speaking from Lviv, also predicted “destabilization of nations” and “mass
migration” out of already troubled nations like Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan as
well as Central America if food production in Ukraine is not restored. Ukraine
grows enough food to feed 400 million people. Beasley
said the WFP makes half of its grain purchases from Ukraine. He said it was crucial to get farmers
back in the fields and to re-open the Black Sea ports through which Ukraine's
exports flow. “This is a very serious
problem if we don't get the farmers back to the field,” he said. “Equally as
important is we've got to get the ports open again, cause the Black Sea is shut
down right now… So that's got to be opened up. It's got to be demined. And it's
got to happen quickly.” With
Russia's recent refocusing of its military operations in eastern Ukraine, there
been reports of farmers having to wear bulletproof vests in order to continue
working the fields, said show host Margaret Brennan.
“There's $430 trillion worth of wealth
around the world today. There's no reason a single child should be dying from
hunger,” Beasley said. But he noted that food shortages and price hikes have
caused a $71 million increase in the WFP's operational costs each month. “So
when we don't have enough money, well guess what? We have to choose which
children eat and which children don't,” he said. “The last thing we want to do
is take food from a hungry child to give to a starving child.”
Source: CBS News/Face The Nation
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| Tags | Hunger |
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