The first shipment of Ukrainian grain since Russia's invasion will no longer arrive in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli on Sunday as planned, Ukraine's embassy in Beirut said.
"Tomorrow's arrival of (the) Razoni ship is postponed," the embassy told AFP in a message on Saturday.
Updates regarding an arrival ceremony "will be sent later when we get information about (the) exact day and time of the arrival of the ship", it added.
Asked why the arrival was postponed, an embassy spokesperson said: "I don't have any other information at the moment."
Lebanon’s transportation minister, Ali Hamie, tweeted the ship “that was supposed, according to what was rumored, to reach Tripoli port in Lebanon” changed its status. Hamie refused to comment further when contacted by The Associated Press.
An official following the shipment said the vessel might not even dock in Lebanon if the cargo's owner manages to sell it elsewhere.
"The ship will only go to Lebanon... if a trader buys the cargo," the official told AFP, requesting anonymity.
According to Marine Traffic, which monitors vessel traffic and the locations of ships at sea, the ship Saturday changed its status to “order” meaning the ship was waiting for someone to buy the corn.
The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni set sail from the Ukrainian port of Odessa last Monday carrying 26,000 tons of corn, and stopped in Turkey the next day.
It was cleared for passage through the Bosphorus Strait by a team that included Russian and Ukrainian inspectors on Wednesday, and a Ukraine embassy spokesperson had later said it was expected to dock in Lebanon's port of Tripoli at 10 am (0700 GMT) on Sunday.
The delivery is the first under a UN-backed deal, brokered with the help of Turkey last month, which aims to ease a global food crisis.
Lebanon, which is struggling with one of the world's worst financial crises, is facing a particularly acute bread shortage.
The economic meltdown rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement was made worse by a massive blast in August 2020 that destroyed Beirut’s port and the country’s main grain silos inside the sprawling facility. Large parts of the silos collapsed in recent days after fire caused by remnants of grain that started fermenting and ignited in the summer heat last month.
Lebanese officials said last week that the Razoni was supposed to leave Ukraine and head to Lebanon on Feb. 24 but the departure was delayed by the war that broke out days later.
