After firing director over Gaza, FAO DG ignores protest over Oleshko starvation

 ROME – Members of the Ukrainian community staged a rally outside the Eternal City headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization demanding that the UN hunger-fighting agency take action to save inhabitants of the Ukrainian town of Oleshko who face starvation due to Russian occupation.

“This UN agency should intervene in emergency situations and help to save people from hunger,” the organisers, the Association of Christian Ukrainians in Italy, said in a statement. Demonstrators Thursday carried slogans saying “Save Oleshky,” and “FAO! UN! SAVE THE OLESHKY CIVILIANS.”

 Other placards said “ORGANISE A HUMANITARIAN CORRIDOR. STOP PEOPLE STARVING!”

Two Italian members of parliament, Senator Filippo Sensi and Lia Quartapelle from the Chamber of Deputies, joined the protest.

FAO Director General Qu Dongyu, a Chinese Communist, said recently it is not the business of the agency to promote human rights, it is not clear if he means this includes the right to food also is outside the remit of FAO now, FAO watchers said.

Qu fired an American director, Benjamin Davis, for writing a report about starvation in Gaza and joining a silent staff protest that was filmed by an Israeli spy inside the FAO.

 jf