The cargo vessel Razoni, which last week was the first to export Ukrainian grain from Odessa under an international agreement, has not docked at a port in Lebanon but is anchored off the coast of Turkey.
The original Lebanese buyer no longer wants the cargo that was ordered five months ago. The shipper is now looking for new buyers.
The Razoni was headed to Tripoli after being inspected in Istanbul, but never arrived in Lebanon. Shortly after leaving Istanbul, the course was corrected, followed by a stopover off the Turkish coast. On Tuesday, the Razoni finally anchored before the port of Mersin (Turkey) in the Mediterranean Sea.
There is also now more clarity about the cargo: it consists of more than 26,000 tons of animal feed corn, not suitable for human consumption. Given the huge bread price crisis currently gripping Lebanon, the cargo of feed corn is being called a mockery by Lebanese people.
The country, which lost numerous storage silos in the Beirut port explosion disaster two years ago, used to import 70 percent of its grain from Ukraine until recently. Wheat flour now costs double in Lebanon compared to before the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.
The debate about the Razoni was also criticized by the chairman of the food import consortium. "In this severe food crisis, the country urgently needs wheat and not corn." The international Grain Agreement was recently welcomed as a turning point in the global food security crisis. UN Secretary-General António Guterres even called it a "beacon of hope".
But now the cargoes and destinations of about ten other cargo vessels that departed from Black Sea ports last week are also known.
Traditional importing countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya have been urgently awaiting grain shipments for months due to drought. But so far, not a single shipment of Ukrainian grain has reached the world's hungry, even though more than 270,000 tons of goods have left the port of Odessa.
The departures so far from Ukrainian ports show different cargoes and destinations: corn for Turkey and South Korea, flour for China, or sunflower oil for Italy. Ships have also departed for Ireland and Great Britain with previously ordered shipments of sunflower meal and soybeans.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov says the ports will soon be able to handle 100 ships per month.