NEW YORK, AUGUST 3 – Italy condemned weaponizing food in warfare and urged Russia to rejoin the Black Sea Grain Initiative. “As host of the UN Food Systems summit last July in Rome and as President of the G7 in 2024, Italy is fully committed to tackling food insecurity”, said the Deputy Permanent Representative Gianluca Greco addressing today a Security Council debate on conflict-induced food insecurity.
The meeting was the first organized by the United States’ rotating presidency. It was chaired by US Secretary General Antony Blinken. “In Myanmar, where one in five people is severely undernourished, the military regime is making the problem worse to tighten its grip. In Yemen, some families have reported and resorted to boiling leaves to stay alive. Unless the world acts, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, Somalia could all experience famine next year”, said the head of State Department underlining that “for the first time in three years, the Security Council has unanimously put conflict, hunger, and famine, as well as climate change, at the center of its agenda.”
Blinken addressed the Black Sea Grain Initiative: “It never should have been necessary in the first place. It only was necessary because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian ports. Since Russia pulled out of the arrangement, grain prices have risen by more than 8 percent around the world. Russia has bombed Ukrainian granaries, mining port entrances, threatening to attack any vessel in the Black Sea. These actions are consistent with Russia’s decision last month to block the reauthorization of critical cross-border humanitarian assistance to Syria”. (@OnuItalia)
