Egyptians count rising bread costs as Ukraine war disrupts wheat exports

An Egyptian worker carries loaves of bread at a bakery in Cairo's southeastern Mokattam district, as the prices of basic goods in Egypt have risen since Russia?s invasion of Ukraine, in Egypt, March 16, 2022. Picture taken March 16, 2022. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

From his job as a Cairo doorman, Mahmoud Farag earns 1,500 Egyptian pounds ($95) each month but it's no longer enough to adequately feed his family of five.

Food prices in Egypt were already climbing before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now bread, a politically symbolic staple on which many Egyptians are heavily dependent, is also getting costlier as Black Sea wheat exports are disrupted and global prices surge.