:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/mentormedier/46GMJ6J4R3RAN4CFZTM5R4JNUI.jpg "AU Leader Worried European Union Sanctions Affect Food Delivery to Africa – Dagsavisen")
The war in Ukraine and Russia’s blockade of neighboring ports, combined with local conflicts and climate change, have exacerbated the food crisis on the African continent and sent wheat prices skyrocketing.
When AU leader Macky Sall visited the EU summit in Brussels via video link on Tuesday, he expressed support for UN-led efforts to get Russia to lift the blockade of Odesa.
“I also want to say that our country is very concerned about the unintended consequences of the disruption caused by the exclusion from the Swift payment system,” said Sall, who is also president of Senegal.
He asked for a quick solution to a problem that might arise because it became difficult, if not impossible, to pay for goods. At the same time, he points out that the cessation of card and fertilizer exports via the Black Sea is of great concern to Africa, where some 282 million people are malnourished.
The day before, EU heads of state and government decided to exclude Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank from Swift.
A number of other Russian banks have previously been banned from the payment system as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This makes it difficult for Russian banks to accept and make international payments, but Sberbank said on Tuesday it was operating “as usual”.
African countries imported 44 percent of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine between 2018 and 2020, according to UN figures.
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