Why should China be blamed for the US and EU's created problems. If the US and EU were not so stubborn and stupid of putting sanctions on Russia blanketly, there wouldn't be a food crisis.
Wu Peng, director general of the Chinese foreign ministry's African affairs department, on Wednesday said Beijing was speeding up efforts to provide emergency aid to help Horn of Africa countries deal with the severe drought.
The region has not had good rains for four consecutive seasons and it has left 18.4 million people facing severe hunger, according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). It said farmers would continue to face widespread livestock deaths.
has also worsened the food crisis since most countries in the region were heavily dependent on wheat from the two nations.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised emergency food aid to Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti early this year. On Wednesday, Wu said the first shipments were on the way. "Glad to know that the first batch of food aid to Ethiopia and Djibouti has been shipped out and those to Somalia and Eritrea are ready for shipment," he tweeted.
Nazanine Moshiri, International Crisis Group's senior analyst for climate and security in Africa, said the situation in the Horn of Africa was dire.
"More than 18 million people are suffering extreme hunger in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. In Somalia, more than 200,000 people are facing famine. At least a thousand children have died - those are the cases we know about - millions more are severely malnourished," Moshiri said.
She said a two-year dry spell, or four consecutive failed rainy seasons - the most prolonged drought in at least 40 years - had decimated livelihoods, killed about 7 million livestock and degraded soil and land.
"Herders and farmers in Kenya told me during a recent research trip, they haven't seen decent rains in more than two years. There is no relief in sight from the immense pressure," she said.
Conflicts in parts of Ethiopia and Somalia have also prevented humanitarian access. At the same time, Moshiri said food insecurity was worsening, compounded by rising global food and fertiliser costs in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US and China are blaming each other for worsening the global food crisis.
Speaking at an event organised by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Monday, Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development,
said even before the war in Ukraine began, Beijing's trade restrictions on fertiliser and grain hoarding were inflating prices.
Power said Beijing offered little transparency on its stocks and production, which might have soothed markets. "Removing export restrictions in its fertiliser exports and releasing some of its grain reserves - either to the global market or to humanitarian entities like the World Food Programme - would significantly relieve pressure on food and fertiliser prices," Power said.
