Europe faces huge surge in migration, EU warns

Europe faces huge surge in migration from Middle East and Africa due to food crisis created by war in Ukraine, EU warns

  • Around 20million tonnes of grain are currently blocked in Ukrainian ports
  • Food prices have rocketed which could fuel a migration wave towards Europe
  • Putin has been accused of deliberately weaponizing food supplies 

Europe is facing a huge migration wave from the Middle East and Africa because of the food crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine, the EU has warned.

Ukraine is one of the biggest grain exporters in the world but production and dispatch have been severely affected by Putin’s barbaric invasion.

Around 20million tonnes of grain from last year’s harvest are blocked in Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.

Migrants wait at a reception centre of the so-called migrant ‘Hotspot’ operational processing facility on the southern Italian Pelagie Island of Lampedusa yesterday

Europe is facing a huge migration wave from the Middle East and Africa because of the food crisis

The situation has sent prices for certain foods and cooking oils soaring on world markets, with parts of Africa and the Middle East bearing the brunt.

Vladimir Putin has been accused of deliberately weaponizing food supplies to cause global chaos. 

While Ukrainian refugees were being handled well, ‘we have to prepare also for refugees coming from other areas because of the food security,’ the interim executive director of the Frontex agency, Aija Kalnaja said.

She noted in particular that ‘grain transport from Ukraine is hampered, and that will create waves of migration’.

Kalnaja was speaking as she arrived in Prague for a meeting of EU interior ministers that had been expanded to also include the ministers from non-EU countries Ukraine and Moldova.

Smoke rises from the front lines as much of Ukraine’s farming land is destroyed by fighting

Moscow has said it would allow Ukrainian freighters to leave the ports if Ukraine demined the coastal areas – something Kyiv refuses to do because of how vulnerable it would leave it to seaborne Russian assaults.

The head of UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, warned in June that unless the growing food crisis caused by Russia was quickly resolved, the number of displaced people globally would swell well beyond the record 100 million already counted.

Russia’s war, which started February 24, has already provoked the biggest refugee outflow since World War II, prompting the EU to offer fleeing Ukrainians temporary protection.

According to the UN, the 27-nation European Union is hosting 5.6 million Ukrainian refugees.

The situation has sent prices for certain foods and cooking oils soaring on world markets, with parts of Africa and the Middle East bearing the brunt

Vladimir Putin has been accused of deliberately weaponizing food supplies to cause global chaos

Poland has the biggest number, 1.2 million, while the Czech Republic has 400,000, the largest proportion on a per capita basis.

Frontex says that the outflow of Ukrainians has diminished in recent weeks, and the EU’s home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said the flows between Ukraine and the bloc have now returned to pre-war levels.

She added that many of the Ukrainians in the EU were expected to make decisions on whether or not to return to their country in the next couple of months, before school resumes after the summer break.

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