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Lee Ming-che, who disappeared in 2017 and was later convicted of ‘subverting state power’, spent five years in prison.

Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che has returned to Taiwan after serving a five-year jail sentence in China for alleged crimes against the state.

Lee’s return to Taiwan on Friday comes about five years after he disappeared in March 2017 while traveling to Macau, a former Portuguese colony and semi-autonomous Chinese territory next to Hong Kong.

A week after his disappearance, China confirmed he was being held harmful and was under investigation on suspicion of “pursuing activities to national security”. Lee’s family and several Taiwanese NGOs advocated for months for more information about his whereabouts and other details of his detention.

Lee eventually stood trial in 2017, and pleaded guilty to “subverting state power”, a charge that is frequently used against human rights and lawyers. During his trial, Lee confessed to criticizing the Chinese Communist Party online and promoting a Taiwanese-style democracy for China, according to the Reuters news agency. He was fulfilling five years in prison and completed his term this week.

E-ling Chiu, secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, told Al Jazeera that Lee’s trial and prison conditions violated international law and even Chinese guidelines on prisons.

Lee was reportedly forced to eat spoiled food, and denied warm clothing, she said, while prison officials restricted communication with his family. Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, his wife was also denied the right to visit more than a dozen times.

Lee’s case is unusual because the families of people detained in China on similar grounds are often reluctant to speak to the media or international NGOs for fear of repercussions.

His case echoes that of five Hong Kong booksellers, who disappeared in 2015 only to re-emerge in Chinese detention. One bookseller was kidnapped while traveling in Thailand.

Chiu said it was uncertain how many similar cases of Taiwanese and existed citizens detained in China, and urged the Taiwanese government to carry out a systematic investigation.

After arriving in Taiwan, Lee will now undergo 10 days of mandatory quarantine before he can return home.

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy, and its 23.5 million citizens.

Relations between China and Taiwan, while always tense, have soured since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-wen, who has represented Taiwan as a de facto state to the international community.

An indoor mask mandate will remain but all other health protocols will be relaxed from Monday.

South Korea has said it will lift all COVID-19 social distancing rules, except for the requirement to wear masks , marking the first time most restrictions have been lifted since the pandemic began two years ago.

The 10-person limit on private social gatherings and a midnight curfew at restaurants, coffee shops and other indoor businesses will come to an end on Monday, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum announced.

“The Omicron [variant] has shown signs of weakening significantly after peaking in the third week of March,” Kim said on Friday. “As the virus situation is stable and capabilities of our medical system are confirmed, the government [has] decided to boldly lift social distancing measures.”

People will still be required to wear masks indoors “for a considerable time ahead,” he added, but an outdoor mask mandate might be lifted in two weeks if the outbreak slows further.

The strict distancing requirements had put a huge strain on small businesses, and their removal is a sign that life in South Korea is returning to normal.

A 299-person cap on large-scale events and rallies, as well as the 70 percent capacity limit on houses of worship will also be dropped.

Much evidence suggests the risk of transmission outdoors is extremely low, and many countries, including in North America and Europe, have said masks are not needed outdoors for vaccinated people.

The move comes after South Korea appears to have passed the crest of an Omicron-driven wave, with daily cases falling to below 100,000 last week, down from a peak of more than 620,000 in mid-March.

More than 86 percent of the South Korean population of 51 million has been fully vaccinated, with most people also receiving a booster shot.

South Korea is rolling out second boosters for vulnerable populations.

Approximately 20,000 people in South Korea have died from the coronavirus – a 0.13 percent death rate, which is one of the world’s lowest.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Reps. Lucy McBath and Carolyn Bourdeaux flipped two longtime Republican congressional districts in Atlanta’s northern suburbs by running against then-President Donald Trump and his divisive brand of politics.

But as they fight to keep their House seats this year, they’re competing against each other.

After new congressional maps approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature made McBath’s district more conservative, she decided to compete for Bourdeaux’s seat. That’s pitting two colleagues from the same party against one another ahead of Georgia’s May 24 primary.

The race is an uncomfortable development for Democrats who would prefer to celebrate the inroads they’ve made in Georgia, culminating with Joe Biden becoming his party’s first presidential candidate to take the state in 28 years. Rather than building on that success, which was driven in part by support in Atlanta’s suburbs, the primary is pitting two rising of the party’s stars against each other.

Bourdeaux, who has referred to McBath as a “sister” and previously campaigned alongside her, said in a recent interview that she was “pretty shocked” by the primary challenge.

“If the shoe were on the other foot, it would not have crossed my mind in a million years to go over to the sixth (district) and run against her,” Bourdeaux said, lamenting that McBath was devoting resources to defeating her in the primary that could instead be directed at Republicans.

McBath said her push to remain in Congress is “about my work to honor my son,” not her primary opponent. Her 17-year old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed at a Florida gas station in 2012 by a white man who was over the loud music the Black teenager and his friends had been playing in their car, spurring McBath into becoming a gun safety activist.

“To keep that promise to my son and my family and my community, I have just refused to let Brian Kemp and the NRA gun lobby and the Republican Party decide who represents our communities in Georgia,” McBath said in an interview, referring to the state’s Republican governor and new maps state lawmakers drew based on the 2020 census.

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She added: “I’ve had many people say to me, ‘I think you’re making the right decision. It’s a difficult decision, of course, but I think it’s the right decision.””

The contest is one of five major incumbent-on-incumbent House primary races that will unfold around the country this summer. They include Democratic Reps. Andy Levin and Haley Stevens in suburban Detroit; Republican Reps. David McKinley and Alex Mooney in the northern half of West Virginia; and Illinois congressional colleagues from both parties — Republicans Mary Miller and Rodney Davis and Democrats Marie Newman and Sean Casten.

For some of these contenders, trying to unseat a colleague is just a political reality that comes along with the once-a-decade redistricting process. In Michigan, Levin and Stevens each said they still considered the other a friend despite now competing for a new seat drawn by an independent commission.

“When something unfortunate like this happens, to me, it’s nothing personal,” said Levin, who opted to forgo competing in a newly drawn battleground district to instead challenge Stevens in a safely Democratic one.

Stevens said that, during a recent vote on the House floor, she pulled Levin aside to discuss a bill they’d been working on. Later, she said, it hit her that, “’Holy smokes. I’m in this primary with him and, no matter what happens, we’re not gonna be colleagues.”

The race in Georgia is especially stinging because it will stunt one of two nascent, promising political careers.

McBath won a House seat in 2018 from a suburban district that was held by the former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich for two decades. The former Delta flight attendant is known nationally as a fierce gun safety advocate.

The same year, Bourdeaux came within a few hundred votes of unseating a Republican in the adjacent district, before ultimately winning the seat in 2020. A former public policy professor and Georgia Senate budget director, Bourdeaux has worked on transportation and infrastructure issues. She was among a small group of House Democrats who urged passage last year of a bipartisan infrastructure law before agreement was reached on a larger Democratic social policy package.

Bourdeaux’s redrawn district includes wealthy suburbs in Gwinnett County that have recently diverse in recent years. It has large Black, Hispanic and Asian populations. A stretch of Buford Highway that runs through the area has become a major draw for its breadth of ethnic restaurants.

The district is heavily Democratic, so the winner of the primary is expected to prevail in the general election.

The two have stayed fairly even in the money race. As of the end of last year, McBath had raised slightly more than $3 million, compared with Bourdeaux’s nearly $2.4 million.

Bourdeaux has been endorsed by some top Gwinnett County Democratic leaders, while Everytown for Gun Safety, where McBath once worked, has runs ads on her behalf. “Protect Our Future,” a new Democratic super PAC backed by a cryptocurrency billionaire, has also vowed to spend big to boost McBath, prompting campaign calls from Bourdeaux’s that her opponent should “disavow” funding from the group.

Jovanny Emery Sierra, a 27-year-old technologist at a medical company from Duluth, voted for Bourdeaux in the 2020 general election but is now volunteering for McBath. He said he was alienated by Bourdeaux seeming to prioritize the infrastructure legislation rather than a larger, White House-backed social spending and public works bill known as Build Back Better that eventually collapsed.

“It just felt like a slap in the face,” he said.

Others who live in the district say they feel anguished that McBath or Bourdeaux will be left without a congressional seat.

“We have two great, caring people that are Democrats, but through this gerrymandering at the state Legislature, they just cut them up and dilute the democratic process,” said Jim Shealey, 72. Shealey said he hadn’t decided whom to vote for in May.

Still, Julie Pierce, 65, said McBath’s decision to challenge Bourdeaux “leaves me squeamish.”

Pierce said she’s always thought highly of McBath, but she sees Bourdeaux out campaigning much harder.

“If you’re going to parachute in, for crying out loud, parachute in and date me,” Pierce said of McBath. “Don’t take me for granted.”

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Weissert reported from Washington.

The Moskva, the warship named in honor of the Russian capital and the pride of the country’s Black Sea fleet, has sunk after a fire on board.

The Soviet-era vessel saw service during conflicts in Georgia, Syria and Ukraine and helped conduct peacetime scientific research with the United States.

It was an inglorious demise for a ship initially christened the Slava, or ‘Glory’.

What happened?

The Russian Defense Ministry says the Moskva was badly damaged by a fire and sank in a storm as it was being towed to port.

It previously said that “a detonation of ammunition” triggered a fire and forced the crew to evacuate.

A Ukrainian official claimed it had struck the Moskva with a Neptune cruise missile after successfully diverting the ship’s radar systems.

The US says it has been able to confirm Ukraine’s claims.

The ship, which would usually have about 500 sailors on board, was thought to be located in the Black Sea somewhere off the Ukrainian port of Odesa at the time of the fire.

What is the significance of the sinking?

The 12,500 tonne Moskva was armed with multiple anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, and was the only ship of its class in the Black Sea. The two other missile cruisers – the Marshal Ustinov and the Varyag – are with Russia’s Northern and Pacific fleets respectively.

The Institute for the Study of War (IOW) says it was not able to verify that Ukraine had sunk the warship, but the Moskva’s loss – regardless of the cause – was a “major propaganda victory for Ukraine”. In contrast, it was likely to general institute Russian morale, the said.

In military terms, however, the loss might not be so significant.

IOW says the Moskva was probably mainly used to conduct Kalibr cruise missile attacks on sites including logistic centers and airfields in Ukraine.

“These strikes have been effective but limited in number compared to airstrikes and ground-launched missiles throughout the invasion and the loss of the Moskva is unlikely to be a decisive blow,” IOW said.

Russian military experts have also played down the sinking’s military significance.

“The ship is really very old. Actually, there have been plans to scrap it for five years now,” Russian military analyst Alexander Khramchikhin told the Reuters news agency.

“It has more status value than real combat value, and in general, had nothing to do with the current operation. It will have no effect on the course of hostilities.”

What is the Moskva’s history?

The Moskva was among a group of ships that the Soviet Union designed in the late 1970s to counter US aircraft carrier groups and provide air defense to Soviet vessels operating in distant oceans.

At the time, they were nicknamed “carrier killers”.

The warship was launched as the Slava from a shipyard in Mykolaiv in Ukraine – then part of the Soviet Union – in July 1979, according to open-source intelligence firm Janes. Commissioned in late December 1982, it was 186 meters (610 feet) long and designed to carry a crew of 476 with an additional 62 officers.

The Slava was the flagship of the Soviet fleet in the Black Sea and was equipped with deck guns, torpedoes and mortars, as well as nuclear weapons during the Cold War. It also had a helicopter deck.

It underwent repairs during the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia’s economy struggled and Ukraine emerged as an independent, sovereign nation.

Renamed the Moskva, President Vladimir, who came to power in 1999, hosted world leaders on board, including then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on a 2003 visit to Sardinia.

In 2008, during Russia’s war in Georgia – also once part of the Soviet Union – the Moskva was involved in operations in the Black Sea. The Georgian government said the ship also took part in an attack on the country.

The Moskva briefly took part in a blockade of the Ukrainian navy in March 2014 as part of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The following year, it provided air defense for Russian forces operating in Syria.

The Moskva’s sailors were decorated for their service there and in the war on Georgia.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the ship took part in an attack on Zmiinyi – or Snake Island. In audio widely circulated online, a Ukrainian soldier responds: “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.”

The incident has become a rallying point for Ukraine and the country has just released postal stamps commemorating the encounter.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea is marking a key state anniversary Friday with calls for stronger loyalty to leader Kim Jong Un, but there was no word on an expected military parade to display new weapons amid heightened animosities with the United States.

The 110th birth anniversary of Kim’s late grandfather and state founder, Kim Il Sung, comes after North Korea conducted a spate of weapons tests in recent months, including its first full-range intercontinental ballistic missile launch since 2017. Experts say North Korea aims to expand its weapons arsenal and ramp up pressure on the United States amid long-stalled nuclear diplomacy.

“Let’s work harder in devotion to our respected comrade Kim Jong Un and on that path ultimately realize the dreams of our great president (Kim Il Sung) to build a powerful socialist state,” the North’s state-run website Uriminzokkiri said in a commentary.

The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said North Korea is revering Kim Il Sung as “eternal president” under the “outstanding leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un.”

Kim Il Sung’s birthday is the most important national holiday in North Korea, where the Kim family has ruled under a strong personality cult since the nation’s founding in 1948. Kim Jong Un is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea after his father died in late 2011.

Kim has ambitiously pushed to advance his nuclear arsenal while simultaneously reviving the economy. But a mix of pandemic-caused hardships, US-led sanctions and his own mismanagement have caused a massive economic blow in what’s become the toughest moment of his decade in power.

North Korea often marks key state anniversaries with huge military parades featuring newly built missiles. State media said Kim Il Sung’s birthday with be celebrated with fireworks, a dance party and a performance, but didn’t mention a military parade.

NK News, a North Korea-focused news outlet, said its sources in Pyongyang reported hearing jets and helicopters flying low over the city center shortly after midnight Thursday — a possible indication that a nighttime military parade was taking place. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it had no immediate information to share with the media on a possible military parade in North Korea.

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After North Korea’s spate of missile tests earlier this year, South Korean officials said North Korea could soon launch fresh provocations like an additional ICBM test, a banned launch of a rocket to put a spy satellite into orbit, or even a nuclear bomb test that would be the seventh of its kind.

South Korea’s military said recently it detected signs that North Korea is rebuilding tunnels at a nuclear testing ground that it partially dismantled before it entered now-dormant nuclear talks with the United States in 2018. Some experts say North Korea will likely perform a nuclear test after US and South Korea militaries begin their annual drills, which the North views as an invasion rehearsal, next week.

“I think they’ll carry out a nuclear test once it finishes restoring its nuclear testing facility,” said Moon Seong Mook, an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. “There is no reason for them to bring back its testing ground if they don’t plan to use them for a bomb test.”

Some experts say the ongoing brinkmanship is also likely motivated by domestic politics, as Kim doesn’t otherwise have significant accomplishments to flaunt to his people since his summitry with then-President Donald Trump aimed at winning badly needed sanctions relief collapsed in 2019. Last year , Kim acknowledged North Korea was facing its “worst-ever situation.”

North Korea’s hacking program dates back to the mid-1990s and is believed to employ some 6,000 people.

The United States has linked North Korean hackers to a multi-million dollar cryptocurrency heist last month focusing on players of the popular Axie Infinity game.

The March hack of Blockchain project Ronin was one of the biggest to hit the crypto world, raising huge questions about security in an industry that only recently burst into the mainstream thanks to celebrity promotions and promises of untold wealth.

The Ronin network allows users to transfer crypto in and out of the game.

“Through our investigations we were able to confirm Lazarus Group and APT38, cyber actors associated with [North Korea]are responsible for the theft,” the FBI said in a statement.

Lazarus rose to prominence in 2014 when it was accused of hacking into Sony Pictures Entertainment as revenge for “The Interview,” a satirical film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It has also been accused of involvement in the “WannaCry” ransomware attacks, as well as hacking international banks and customer accounts.

“The United States is aware that the DPRK has relied on illic activities — including cybercrime — to generate revenue for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs as it tries to evade robust US and UN sanctions,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said, using the initials of North Korea’s official name.

North Korea’s hacking program dates back to at least the mid-1990s and has grown to a 6,000-strong cyber warfare unit, known as Bureau 121, that operates from several countries, including Belarus, China, India, Malaysia and Russia according to a 2020 US military report.

In the case of the Axie Infinity heist, attackers exploited weaknesses in the set-up put in place by the Vietnam-based firm behind the game, Sky Mavis.

The company had to solve a problem: the ethereum blockchain, where transactions in the ether cryptocurrency are logged, is relatively slow and expensive to use.

To allow Axie Infinity players to buy and sell at speed, the firm created an in-game currency and a sidechain with a bridge to the main ethereum blockchain.

The result was faster and cheaper, but ultimately less secure.

The attack pinpointing its blockchain netted 173,600 ether and $25.5 million-worth of stablecoin, a digital asset pegged to the US dollar.

The US is pushing the UN Security Council to blacklist the Lazarus Group and freeze its assets, according to a draft resolution reviewed by the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

Taipei, Taiwan – Before the pandemic, Taipei’s Yongkang Street was a top tourist destination, catering to visitors who would snack on spring onion pancakes, bubble tea and mango ice in between browsing gift shops and upscale boutiques.

The area was so popular that the iconic Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung opened a second location across the street from its flagship store to manage the demand for its dumplings.

These days, “for rent” signs and empty shop fronts are a common sight in the neighborhood.

After more than two years of closed borders, times are tough for Taiwanese small businesses that once counted on tourists for much of their income. While Yongkang Street still draws locals on the weekends, they often have different tastes to the foreign tourists barred from the island since March 2020.

Shaun Yu, who owns Lai Hao gift shop on a side street off Yongkang, said he had been forced to close two of his three locations – the last one opened at the end of 2019 when his shop was a popular destination for tourists looking for souvenirs .

“After Taiwan closed the border, my business dropped like 85 percent,” Yu told Al Jazeera, explaining he had been forced to lay off two-thirds of his staff.

Before the collapse of tourism, Yu could make 200,000 NTD (US$6,894) a month alone on just one corner of the store that sold Taiwan-branded face tissues – a popular gift, he said, for Japanese tourists to bring back to coworkers. The figure these days, Yu said, is about 1000 NTD ($34).

Yu said that while he has been heartened somewhat by recent signs that Taiwan plans to slowly ease its pandemic controls, conditions are still far from where they need to be for his business to recover.

Despite Taipei signaling it will move away from its longstanding “zero-COVID” policy, the government has not laid out any timetable for fully reopening its borders.

The self-ruled island’s continuing isolation makes it a rare holdout in a region that, apart from China and Japan, has all but abandoned border controls as a defense against the virus.

As vaccination rates have risen – nearly 80 percent of Taiwanese are double vaccinated, and about half have received three shots – authorities have eased some border restrictions. Foreign professionals, students and family members of citizens have gradually been allowed to return since last year, but officials have not announced plans for the return of tourists and tour groups.

All arrivals must also undergo 10 days of quarantine, a hurdle for casual and short-term business travellers that is at odds with the quarantine-free arrival on offer in almost all of its Asian peers.

Health authorities have discussed lowering quarantine to three days at an unspecified point in the future, although tourism watchers are sceptical that would be enough to bring back visitors in droves.

While still largely untouched by COVID-19 compared with the rest of the world, Taiwan is currently experiencing its worst outbreak in nearly a year, reporting 874 local cases on Thursday. Last week, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Facebook that, rather than elimination, Taiwan’s goal going forward would be zero serious cases and a controlled number of mild or symptomless cases.

In 2019, most of Taiwan’s tourists came from nearby Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, according to government data, with their length of stay averaging 6.2 nights – making any length of quarantine a likely non-starter for most visitors.

Health authorities have indicated that quarantine will remain in some form for the foreseeable future, suggesting in public comments that the length could be lowered to three days at an unspecified later date.

Political and psychological shift

For Taiwan, reopening will require a significant political and psychological shift. The East Asian democracy has enjoyed some of the lowest case and death rates in the world for much of the pandemic, and also watched as cases have spiralled elsewhere as restrictions were lifted.

Still, some residents have begun to question why the self-ruled island is so far behind the rest of the world in returning to normality.

For Kelly Khiew, a Singaporean rock-climbing guide based outside Taipei, any change to Taiwan’s current policy is welcome.

“I think at a very fundamental level before we talk about quarantine, they should open their borders to the general public,” Khiew told Al Jazeera. “I have friends, relatives and also clients, who drop me messages. They are hoping to head over to visit Taiwan, not only for climbing but as a tourist destination. I think the interest is still there, it’s just that the borders are closed to everyone else.”

Since the start of 2020, Khiew and her husband have had to reimagine the business model of their company, Qzadventures Rock Guides, from organising trips for Singaporeans and expats to visit Taiwan to courting local climbers and foreigners.

Khiew said their revenue has fallen sharply as they have found themselves competing with other outdoor sports. To make up the shortfall, she has taken up remote teaching during the week while her husband works in Singapore.

Khiew acknowledged that not everyone in Taiwan feels the same as those in the tourism industry, not least because tourism contributes less to the economy than in many other parts of Asia. Taiwan posted decade-high gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6.8 percent in 2021 thanks to the strong performance of its tech and export-based industries.

“For the last two years, when the borders were closed, Taiwan’s economy was doing very well and better than before, so there’s no pressure to open borders,” she said. “The stigma among the locals is that the virus is very scary.”

Taiwanese have also watched the death rate spiral in Hong Kong following an outbreak fueled by the Omicron variant, an outcome blamed on low vaccination among the elderly. Taiwan has faced much the same challenge with its elderly population, who have been reluctant to get the vaccine due to fears of potentially fatal side effects.

C Jason Wang, a professor of paediatrics and health policy at Stanford University who has researched Taiwan’s pandemic response, said the island should be able to weather the latest outbreak without high fatalities if health authorities can get elderly vaccination rates up.

Taiwan has a respected healthcare system with an intensive care capacity that is on par with Germany and Canada, and Taiwanese now need to “have the courage to move into the future,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

“This means recognising that the focus should shift to preventing deaths from preventing the spread of the virus, as Omicron is both highly contagious and often symptomless,” he said.

Even as cases have climbed in Taiwan, fatalities have remained low, with just 854 deaths reported since 2020, according to government data.

“Taiwanese people are used to getting a perfect score on their exam – zero COVID for 200 days – but this is like going to college,” Wang said. “You’re not going to get 100 in college because the problem sets are different.”

A selection of the week’s best photos from across the continent and beyond:

Images subject to copyright.

The UN is warning of a ‘perfect storm’ of crises for developing countries as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the flow of food, fuel and money around the world.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the flow of food, fuel and money around the world.

The UN warns the conflict’s cascading effects could affect nearly 1.7 billion people.

That’s because Russia and Ukraine are major food and energy suppliers.

They grow much of the wheat, barley, maize and sunflower oil that developing nations depend on.

Food prices are up 34 percent compared with last year, the highest levels ever recorded by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Crude oil prices have risen 60 percent compared with last year, and fertiliser prices have doubled.

So, what are the solutions to limit the effect on the world’s most vulnerable people?

Presenter: Mohammed Jamjoom

Guests:

Abdolreza Abbassian – Senior Food Market Analyst and former Head Senior Economist, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Parvin Ngala – Regional Director for Oxfam International in Horn, East & Central Africa

Chris Weafer – Chief Executive Office of Macro Advisory, a strategic consultancy focused on Russia and Eurasia

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the UN World Food Program said people are being “starved to death” in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, and he predicted the country’s humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen as Russia intensifies its assault in the coming weeks.

WFP executive director David Beasley also warned in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press in Kyiv that Russia’s invasion of grain-exporting Ukraine risks destabilizing far from its shores and could trigger of waves of migrants seeking better lives elsewhere.

The war that began Feb. 24 was “devastating the people in Ukraine,” he said, lamenting the lack of access faced by the WFP and other aid organizations in trying to reach those in need amid the conflict.

“I don’t see any of that easing up. I just don’t see it happening right now,” he said.

The fluid nature of the conflict, which has seen fighting shift away from areas around the capital and toward eastern Ukraine, has made it especially difficult to reach hungry Ukrainians.

The WFP is trying to put food supplies now in areas that could be caught up in the fighting, but Beasley acknowledged that there are “a lot of complexities” as the situation rapidly evolves.

A lack of access is part of the problem, he said, but so is a shortage of manpower and fuel as resources are diverted to the war effort.

“It’s not just going to be the next few days — but the next few weeks and few months could even get more complicated than it is now,” he said. “In fact, it’s getting worse and worse, concentrated in certain areas, and the front lines are going to be moving.”

Beasley expressed a particular concern about the port city of Mariupol, where a dwindling number of Ukrainian defenders is holding out against a Russian siege that has trapped well over 100,000 civilians in desperate need of food, water and heating.

Russian forces that control access to the city have not allowed in aid, even though the WFP has demanded access.

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“We will not give up on the people of Mariupol and other people that we cannot reach. But it’s a devastating situation: the people being starved to death,” he said.

Russia is determined to seize the city so its forces from the annexed Crimean Peninsula can fully link up with troops elsewhere in the Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland and the target of the offensive.

The UN food chief warned of disastrous ripple due to Ukraine’s role as major international grain supplier.

A global food shortage caused by the war could prompt “mass migration beyond anything we’ve seen since World War II,” he said, echoing remarks he made to the UN Security Council last month.

Russia and Ukraine together produce 30% of the world’s wheat supply and export about three-quarters of the world’s sunflower seed oil. Half of the grain the WFP buys for distribution around the world comes from Ukraine.

Some 30 million metric tons of grain bound for export are unable to be shipped because of the war, Beasley said. Ukrainian farmers are struggling to access fertilizer and seed, and those who can plant may see their harvest rot in the fields if the war drags on and there’s no way to ship it, he warned.

The shipping challenges have forced the WFP to half rations for millions of people, many in Africa, and more cuts may be needed, he said.

“People are going to be starving to death,” he said.

Beasley also visited areas near Kyiv that were ravaged by the Russian invasion, including the town of Bucha, where evidence of mass killings and other atrocities against civilians have shocked the world.

He described neighborhoods “completely decimated by bombings,” likening what he saw to a nightmare that was impossible to believe.

But he stopped short of describing the killings a genocide, as US President Joe Biden did this week.

“Well, I know one thing. People are dying,” he said when asked about Biden’s comments. “But there’s no doubt in my mind this is a horror story and it is truly heartbreaking.”

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine