AFP, published Friday, June 17, 2022 at 12:07 p.m
In the Ukrainian port of Izmail on the Danube, truck drivers are impatient, their trucks are overflowing with grain. At the other end, in Romania, where the river flows into the Black Sea, ships are also chomping at their teeth.
In the memory of one sailor, never before have so many boats flying different flags been stationed off Sulina in eastern Romania, waiting to reach Ukraine to be loaded with food.
The Russian invasion turned everything upside down: Moscow’s blockade of Ukrainian seaports, starting with Odessa, crippled exports from the country, which is one of the world’s largest grain producers.
“The alternative is the Danube”, which draws a natural border between Ukraine and Romania. “The big problem is the capacity of the infrastructure on the river,” Yuri Dimchoglo, former vice-president of the Odessa regional council, told AFP.
Since the war began, “only 1.5 million tons of grain have been exported through this canal,” he says, a drop in the ocean compared to the 20-25 million tons that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said were blocked in Ukraine.
– “Feeding the World” –
At the head of the chain, farmer Vyatcheslav Zyabkin, who works 35 kilometers from the port, “hasn’t put anything on the Danube ships yet. Not even a kilo.”
Because he was offered a purchase price well below the operating costs, he says the Danube solution is particularly suitable for small farmers who have small quantities to sell.
And for those who do, the journey is strewn with obstacles.
First the traffic jams on the road: trucks are coming from the south of the country hoping to be able to unload on the Danube.
Then arrived at the port, there is also a crowd there.
Met in Izmaïl, Serguiï Gavrilenko, 45-year-old driver, blue striped tank top, khaki bucket hat and aviator goggles, tramples. It’s 32 degrees and he’s washing himself with a canister of water that’s in his cabin.
“Before the war it took one day, now it’s three days. We take it upon ourselves because it serves the well-being of the country and the world’s food supply,” he says.
– “No rest” –
The boats that take over and transport the goods to foreign customers on the Danube before reaching the Black Sea actually arrive in droplet and droplet.
In front of Sulina, almost a hundred of them have to wait an average of seven to ten days before they can take the canal towards the Ukrainian ports.
“Our volume of work has increased a lot. We work from sunrise to sunset,” says Gabriel Danila-Mihalcea, 28, captain of a boat that multiplies round-trip trips between Sulina and the Black Sea.
The mission of this pilot boat is crucial: to board each of the ships in the harbor with a pilot who will take the helm to the port of destination.
This rule was reaffirmed by the Danube Convention in 1948 due to the dangers of a misleading watercourse.
“We have no respite,” complains one of the 36 navigators assigned to this task, on condition of anonymity.
“Last month, 400 boats passed through Sulina, which was a record,” says pilot boat mechanic Mihai Calin, 48, of whom 30 are in the water.
– “Hurricane of Famine” –
“Traffic has tripled compared to May 2021,” Romania’s State Secretary for Transport Ion Popa confirmed to AFP.
Coping with this increase is “an effort for Romania,” he adds, hoping for help from Brussels.
After Romania and Ukraine denied responsibility for waiting times in port, they set up a joint command in late May to decide the order in which ships enter the Danube. Those chartered to transport grain now have priority.
Almost 700,000 tons have also been transported via the Romanian port of Constanta on the Black Sea aboard barges, trains or trucks since the start of the conflict, Mr Popa points out.
But the queues at the road and rail border crossings are getting longer every day.
Before the war, Ukraine was the fourth largest exporter of corn, on course to become the world’s third largest exporter of wheat, and alone accounted for 50% of world trade in sunflower seeds and oil.
If the crisis persists, the United Nations fears “a hurricane of famine” in the coming months.