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First grain ship leaves Ukraine for Africa as fighting continues in Donbass

A SHIP docked in Ukraine today to load grain for the first shipment of World Food Programme aid to Ethiopia to leave the country since Russia invaded on February 24.

A United Nations-brokered deal has allowed ships to export grain via the Black Sea again, following months in which Russian blockades and Ukrainian sea mines placed to prevent naval bombardments prevented exports, which pushed up food prices worldwide.

Ethiopia, along with neighbouring Somalia and Kenya, is facing the worst drought in four decades in the Horn of Africa. Thousands of people across the region have died from hunger or illness this year. Forecasts for the coming weeks indicate that for the first time, a fifth successive rainy season will fail to materialise. Millions of livestock have died.

Despite the truce over grain exports, fighting continued to rage in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces continue a steady advance. Russian shelling of Kramatorsk killed seven people overnight and the town’s gas, electricity and running water have been cut off. 

Russian troops also continued to fire on Ukrainian positions from the vicinity of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, prompting Ukrainian return fire that could cause a nuclear accident. Russian artillery fired on the cities of Marhanets and Nikopol across the Dnieper from Zaporizhzhia.

International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Grossi urged Russia and Ukraine — who each blame the other for firing at the nuclear plant — to allow experts to safely visit and assess the damage.

Moscow told the UN that Ukraine’s “criminal attacks” on the plant were “pushing the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe,” while Ukraine said the only way to guarantee its safety was for Russian troops to withdraw and return it to Ukrainian control.

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