A potential imbalance in global wheat supply as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is generating fears across countries that Yemen’s famine crisis and food price inflation may worsen, prompting Yemenis to panic buy flour and other food supplies.
The World Food Program (WFP) announced this week that the Ukraine crisis is likely to drive up fuel and food prices, particularly grains, in Yemen, which is heavily reliant on imports. Food prices have more than doubled in many areas in the past year.
Russia and Ukraine export around 29 percent of the wheat all around the world, and any disruption to that flow will drive up worldwide prices.
Yemen is on the verge of famine as a result of conflicts, wars and inflation.
In Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, wholesaler Mohammed al-Nimri said, ‘People are now racing to purchase, people are on alert, anticipating a crisis.’
‘They’re taking ten, twenty sacks,’ the narrator added.
Mahran Al-Qadi, a flour importer, claimed that they had stock, but people were panic purchasing. ‘As a result of the high demand, some retailers have even hiked their prices,’ he revealed.
Yemen has been divided for seven years between an internationally recognised government in Aden, in the south, and the Iran-aligned Houthi organisation in Sanaa, in the north.
The government of Aden conducted a meeting on food supply on Tuesday, claiming that there were four months’ worth of wheat and other essential products on hand.
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