Humanitarian Aid Ship With 20,000 Tons of Wheat Arrives in Turkiye En Route To Crisis Hit Regions

A humanitarian aid ship with 20,000 tons of wheat from Ukraine docked at the Toros Port in the Turkish northern province of Samsun as a part of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) initiative for supporting the crisis-hit regions, including Syria.

The ship called Brave Commander was welcomed with a ceremony, with Deputy Governor of Samsun Kemal Yildiz calling the shipment a symbol of shared conscience and solidarity for all humanity.

Stephen Cahill, WFP country director in Türkiye, noted that the vessel first carried aid from Ukraine when the Black Sea Grain Corridor Initiative started in 2022.

He also spoke of Turkiye’s role in food distribution around the world, saying that the WFP has bought $ 1.1 billion worth of food from Turkiye in the past 5 years, all of which was distributed as humanitarian aid in crisis-hit areas.

He said that 5000 of the 20,000 tons of wheat transferred from the ship will be allocated for humanitarian operations in Syria.

Cahill also stated that it shows their relations with the Turkish government go across several sectors, and there is work done for Syrian refugees, and there is work done globally as well.

He spoke about the situation in Gaza, Yemen and Sudan and called for solidarity among nations to come together. He said there were many donors in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and they would need the same going forward in a world divided by fragmentation.

Ambassador Aylin Sekizkok, director general of International Economic Affairs at the Foreign Ministry, spoke of the growing global food crisis and said that over 840 million people are facing hunger.

References: TRT Global, Azer News

Source: Maritime Shipping News