“Even bread is not something we take for granted anymore”: Soaring energy and food prices triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are pushing some Middle Eastern and North African countries to the brink. By zkaram.
“Put simply, people cannot afford food of the quality or quantity that they need, with those in conflict- and crisis-affected countries ... at greatest risk,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch.starting in late 2010 known as the Arab Spring, when skyrocketing bread prices fueled anti-government protests across the Middle East, noted Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
“People have a right to food, and governments should do everything in their power to protect that right, otherwise we risk not only food insecurity but the insecurity and instability that gross deprivation on this scale could trigger,” Fakih said.The war also has sparked concern that much of the international aid upon which so many in the Arab world depend will be diverted to Ukraine, where more than 3.
“I have nothing,” said Ghalib al-Najjar, a 48-year-old Yemeni father of seven whose family has lived in a refugee camp outside the rebel-held capital of Sanaa since fleeing fighting in their middle-class neighborhood more than four years ago. “I need flour, a package of flour. I need rice. I need sugar. I need what people need .”
“This is not a small problem,” he said. Bohsali noted that a search is underway for alternative places from which to import needed products, but he said other countries have either banned food exports or significantly raised prices. , products such as cooking oil — when they can be found — have doubled in price in the month since the war began in Ukraine. On a recent day at one government cooperative in the capital of Damascus, shelves were almost empty except for sugar and napkins.
Consumers have accused merchants of exploiting the war in Ukraine to raise prices even though they have not yet been affected.
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