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TUNIS — Households across North Africa are rushing to stock up on flour, semolina and other staples as food prices rise following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both key wheat exporters to the region.

The scramble is worse coming just weeks before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims traditionally break a dawn-to-dusk fast with lavish family meals.

Tunisia, Morocco and Libya, along with several other Arab countries, import much of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia.

Some fear the Russian invasion could lead to hunger and unrest, with memories of how rising food prices played a role in several Arab uprisings last decade.

In one supermarket in the Tunisian capital, the shelves were bare of flour or semolina, and only three packs of sugar sat on a shelf near a sign that read: "One kilogramme per customer, please".

Store managers said the problem was "panic buying", not shortages.

Shopper Houda Hjeij, who said she hadn't been able to find rice or flour for two weeks, blamed the authorities.

"With the war in Ukraine, they did not think ahead," the 52-year-old housewife in Tunis said.

Bulk-buying ahead of Ramadan, which is expected to start in early April this year, is common in Muslim countries.

But some say the war in Ukraine has sparked a shopping frenzy.

Fear of war 

Hedi Baccour, of Tunisia's union of supermarket owners, said daily sales of semolina, a staple across North Africa used in dishes of couscous, have jumped by "700 per cent" in recent days.

Sugar sales are up threefold as Tunisians stockpile basic foodstuffs, said Baccour, who insisted there were no food shortages.

Each day pensioner Hedi Bouallegue, 66, makes the round of grocery shops in his Tunis neighbourhood to stock up on products like cooking oil and semolina.

“I am even ready to pay double the price,” he told AFP.

Baker Slim Talbi said he had been paying three times as much for flour than in the past, “although the real effects of the [Russia-Ukraine] war have not hit us yet”.

“I am worried” about the future, Talbi added, citing Tunisia’s dependence on Ukrainian wheat.

Tunisia imports almost half of the soft wheat used to make bread from Ukraine. Authorities say the North African country has enough supplies to last three months.

Oil-rich Libya gets about 75 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Morocco also relies heavily on the same source for supplies.

Algeria, Africa’s second-largest wheat consumer after Egypt, does not import any from the two warring eastern European countries, instead sourcing it from Argentina or France, according to the bureau of cereals.

“There won’t be any shortages — wheat shipments regularly arrive at Algiers port,” said harbour official Mustapha, who declined to give his full name.

Despite reassurances, panicked citizens recently ransacked semolina stocks in Algeria’s eastern Kabylie region.

“War in Ukraine and all the semolina warehouses have been stormed,” Mouh Benameur, who lives in the area, posted on Facebook.

Recession, pandemic, recovery 

Food prices were on the rise in North Africa before Russia invaded Ukraine more than two weeks ago.

Moroccan official Fouzi Lekjaa pointed to a global economic pick-up following a pandemic-induced slump.

“With the recovery, the market price of cereals and oil products rose,” he said.

Mourad, 37, a shopper in the Moroccan capital Rabat, said climate change and drought, the worst in his country in decades — were also to blame.

To keep prices affordable and avoid a repeat of bread riots that erupted in the 1980s, Tunisia subsidises staples like sugar, semolina and pasta.

For the past decade, it has set the price of a baguette loaf of bread at 6 US cents.

Algeria plans to scrap subsidies on basic goods, but has not yet done so.

After a truck drivers’ strike this week, Morocco said it was mulling fuel subsidies for the sector “to protect citizens’ purchasing power and keep prices at a reasonable level”, according to government spokesman Mustapha Baitas.

In Libya, which found itself with two rival prime ministers this month, sparking fears of renewed violence, food prices are also hitting the roof.

At a Tripoli wholesale market, shopper Saleh Mosbah blamed “unscrupulous merchants”.

“They always want to take advantage when there is a conflict,” he said.

Summaya, a shopper in her 30s who declined to give her full name, blamed the government.

“They reassure people by saying there is enough wheat,” she said, carrying two 5 kilo bags of flour. “I don’t believe them.”

TUNIS — Thousands of Tunisian opposition supporters demonstrated on Sunday in the capital against President Kais Saied’s power grab and the economic crisis in the North African country. “Poverty has increased”, and “Famine is at our doorsteps”, they chanted as at least 2,000 people gathered in the city centre.

Protesters held up signs in English and French, reading “Tunisia wake up” and “Tunisian state is on the verge of collapse”. Saied last July sacked the government, suspended parliament and moved to rule by decree, sparking fears for democracy in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab uprisings.

The latest demonstration was called by the Free Destourian Party which is led by staunchly anti-Islamist lawyer Abir Moussi. “The government today is incapable of finding solutions for the Tunisian people... If we continue in silence, we will lose the country,” Moussi said in a speech during the demonstration.

She branded Tunisia’s current executive as “illegitimate” and called for legislative elections to be brought forward from their scheduled date of December. Bearing a portrait of Moussi, protester Youssef Jabali told AFP: “Saied, the dictator, is shut off in his palace and the people can’t find semolina, flour, oil or sugar.”

Already plunged in economic crisis, Tunisia has in recent weeks seen a shortage of staple foods, as the war in Ukraine threatens to interrupt key supplies to various Arab countries. The authorities have attributed the shortages to panic buying ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, starting this year in April, when Muslims traditionally break a dawn-to-dusk fast with lavish family meals.

Saied on Wednesday declared a “relentless war” on food speculators and profiteers, accusing them of seeking to “strike at social peace and security”.

DUBAI — Forty-seven children were "killed or maimed" in Yemen's civil war in January and February following a surge in violence, the United Nations children's fund said on Saturday.

Children are the "first and most to suffer", UNICEF said, adding that a total of at least over 10,000 minors have been killed or injured in a war that has raged since 2015.

"Just over the first two months of this year, 47 children were reportedly killed or maimed in several locations across Yemen," Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF representative to Yemen, said in a statement.

"Since the conflict escalated in Yemen nearly seven years ago, the UN verified that more than 10,200 children have been killed or injured. The actual number is likely much higher."

In the Ukraine war, at least 71 children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in two weeks since Russia's invasion on February 24, a Ukrainian parliament official said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died as a direct or indirect consequence of Yemen's war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and a government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

In November, the UN Development Programme said 377,000 lives would have been lost through fighting, hunger, unclean water and disease by the end of 2021.

"Violence, misery and grief have been commonplace in Yemen with severe consequences on millions of children and families," Duamelle said.

"It is high time that a sustainable political solution is reached for people and their children to finally live in the peace they so well deserve."

The conflict has caused a collapse in basic services such as healthcare and education, with millions of people displaced and 80 per cent of the population dependent on aid.

More than 2,500 schools are unusable, according to UNICEF, as they have been destroyed, converted for military purposes, or used to shelter the displaced.

A report released by the UN Security Council in January said nearly 2,000 children recruited by the rebels had died on the battlefield between January 2020 and May 2021.

PARIS — Britain, France and Germany warned on Saturday against moves to "exploit" the Iran nuclear negotiations, a tacit warning to Russia which is accused of delaying an agreement to gain leverage in its invasion of Ukraine.

Negotiators in Vienna said on Friday they had halted talks despite having almost sealed a deal to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to contain Iran's nuclear activities.

The setback came after Russia said it was demanding guarantees that the Western sanctions imposed on its economy following its invasion of Ukraine would not affect its trade with Iran.

"Nobody should seek to exploit JCPOA negotiations to obtain assurances that are separate to the JCPOA," said a statement on Saturday from the spokespersons for the British, French and German foreign ministries, the three European parties to the negotiations.

“This risks the collapse of the deal, depriving the Iranian people of sanctions lifting and the international community of the assurance needed on Iran’s nuclear programme,” they added.

The current round of negotiations started in late November in the Austrian capital Vienna between Britain, China, France, Germany, Iran and Russia, with the US taking part indirectly.

After the talks halted on Friday, the United States put the ball in Iran and Russia’s court.

“We are confident that we can achieve mutual return to compliance... [if] those decisions are made in places like Tehran and Moscow,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, told reporters outside the talks venue that he rejected “attempts to put all the blame on the Russian Federation”, insisting that other parties to the talks “need additional time”.

The JCPOA aimed to ensure Iran would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon, which it has always denied seeking.

It unravelled when former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran, prompting it to start disregarding the curbs laid down in the deal on its nuclear activity.

“A fair and comprehensive deal is on the table ready for conclusion,” the European statement said on Saturday.

“It is our understanding that Iran and the US have worked hard to resolve final bilateral issues and so we are ready to conclude this deal now.”

NASIRIYAH, Iraq — Protests erupted on Wednesday in Iraq's impoverished south over a rise in food prices that officials attributed to the conflict in Ukraine.

For about a week, the price of cooking oils and flour have skyrocketed in local markets as government officials have sought to address growing anger with various statements and measures.

More than 500 protesters gathered in a central square in the southern city of Nasiriyah, a flashpoint of anti-corruption protests that gripped the country in 2019.

"The rise in prices is strangling us, whether it is bread or other food products," retired teacher Hassan Kazem said. "We can barely make ends meet."

On Tuesday, the Iraqi government announced measures to confront the increase in international prices.

These included a monthly allowance of about $70 for pensioners whose income does not exceed one million dinars (almost $700), as well as civil servants earning less than 500,000 dinars.

The authorities also announced the suspension of customs duties on food products, basic consumer goods and construction materials for two months.

Trade ministry spokesman Mohamed Hanoun attributed the rise in cooking oil prices to the conflict in Ukraine.

"There's a major global crisis because Ukraine has a large share of (the world market in cooking) oils," he said.

On Tuesday, a protester was seriously injured in a demonstration in the central province of Babil that was marred by violence, a security source said.

The interior ministry announced it had arrested 31 people accused of "raising the prices of food commodities and abusing citizens".

A protester in Nasiriyah on Wednesday denounced the "greed of traders who manipulate prices".

Both Russia and Ukraine are major producers of foodstuffs, including sunflower oil and wheat, and the Middle East is partiuclarly dependent on imports from the two countries.

Iraq was rocked by nationwide protests in 2019 against rampant corruption, a lack of job opportunities and poor living conditions.

More than 600 people were killed and tens of thousands injured during the demonstrations.

BEIRUT — Russia’s offer of “humanitarian corridors” for civilians to flee the Ukrainian cities it has besieged is a well-tried approach Moscow adopted during Syria’s devastating civil war. In those evacuations, Russia backed Syria’s regime in pummelling rebel-held enclaves, before it brokered “safe corridors” and exit deals for civilians and fighters to leave, paving the way for a return to full regime control. 

 The Russian-led evacuations were regularly hampered by violence, often deeply distrusted, and were carried out with minimal international oversight. “In Ukraine, we are seeing some of the same risks we saw in Syria,” said Emma Beals, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute.

“In some cases, routes are attacked during evacuations and civilians are injured or killed,” she told AFP. Russia entered Syria’s war in 2015 on the side of President Bashar Assad’s regime. It negotiated and then oversaw controversial evacuations of more than 200,000 people from around Damascus, as well as the city of Aleppo and Daraa province.

In Ukraine, Kyiv has branded the corridors a publicity stunt, as many of the exit routes lead into Russia or its ally Belarus. Both sides accuse each other of ceasefire violations. Here is a look at the key Syrian evacuations Russia carried out.

Aleppo

The regime had been battling rebels in Aleppo since 2012, but in September 2016 it launched a final campaign backed by Russian air power. Russian warplanes bludgeoned rebel-held parts of the northern city, which came under a blitz of barrel bombs, shells and rockets.

According to the UN, about 40,000 civilians as well as more than 1,500 fighters were cut off in the city’s eastern districts. Russia had repeatedly announced several “humanitarian corridors” it said would allow safe passage out — but few took advantage, with opposition officials labelling them “death corridors”.

UN demands it should take charge of the corridors were largely ignored. In December 2016, Russia and Iran clinched an agreement with rebel-backer Turkey to evacuate rebel fighters and their relatives. Between December 15 and December 22, at least 34,000 people left to neighbouring opposition-held areas as part of the agreement, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Many left on buses, some in private cars, with ambulances ferrying the sick and wounded — which came under fire on at least one occasion. Residents said they were harassed and subjected to lengthy inspections at checkpoints before they could leave. A day after the corridor ended, Moscow deployed military police to back the regime forces sweeping in to control the city.

Ghouta

In February 2018, Moscow announced a daily five-hour “humanitarian pause” and the opening of protected corridors to allow people to leave Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus after heavy fighting. Eastern Ghouta, home to more than 400,000 people, had been besieged by regime forces since 2013.

Residents were intially deeply sceptical of Russia’s offer, especially as the corridor led to government-held areas, and was carried out without international oversight. Seven people were killed in violence during the first “pause”.

But as regime troops advanced, more than 100,000 people crossed into regime areas, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. Several agreements were struck between Moscow and rebels, allowing safe passage to fighters and their families to opposition-held regions elsewhere.

Evacuations started on March 22, with more than 67,000 bussed out by the time the last rebel leader quits the area on April 11, according to the observatory. Russian troops accompanied the rebels to Syria’s opposition-held north. Russian military police were deployed at the checkpoints to leave, and Russian soldiers registered passengers and looked on as Syrian troops inspected bags and rebels’ weapons.

Daraa

Russia was also key to the July 2018 surrender of opposition-held cities and towns in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the uprising against Assad. Rebels were forced into talks after a devastating offensive launched with Russian firepower.

Residents and fighters who did not want to live under government control were granted safe passage out, while rebels who chose to remain were granted amnesty on condition they hand over heavy weapons. Hundreds of fighters along with their families left Daraa to the rebel-held north, according to the observatory. Russian forces searched the vehicles before they set off.

Last year, Russia brokered a second wave of departures, with dozens of fighters leaving, after Daraa was gripped by a fresh wave of heavy fighting. “The Syrian experience shows that these humanitarian corridors were anything but,” said Sara Kayyali, Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“Both the Syrian-Russian military alliance and opposition groups attacked the corridors. In some cases, individuals who used them found that instead of safety, they were arrested or disappeared,” she told AFP.