The president of Senegal, Macky Sall, who chairs the African Union, has warned the European Union that Africa is facing a food crisis with soaring wheat and fertilizer prices combined with increasing food shortages due to the war in Ukraine. During an address on Tuesday, Sall also criticized Western sanctions on Russia, saying they are making it harder for African nations to buy food. The African Development Bank says the price of wheat has already jumped 45% on the continent. Rania Dagash of UNICEF said the food crisis is coming as Africa is also confronting the climate crisis.

Rania Dagash: “The fundamental issue in Somalia and in the Horn at the moment is a climate-induced crisis, right? It’s drought. But where the effects of the Ukraine crisis come in is that the food prices and fuel prices and others are hiked up to a point where we need more resources to secure what we would have secured before. We need a lot more.”