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Several hundred oil tankers are stranded near the Strait of Hormuz. That is the narrow waterway that Iran has effectively shut down in response to the U.S.-Israel war. The closure of the strait is also blocking the flow of aid shipments, as NPR's Aya Batrawy reports from Dubai.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEPING)
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Far from the towering skyscrapers of Dubai is a desert industrial site that's also home to the U.N. Humanitarian Response Depot. That's where U.N. agencies like the World Food Programme, the U.N. Children's Fund and the World Health Organization store emergency supplies to send to hotspots around the world.
ALEX MARIANELLI: We've sent shipments to Gaza, Madagascar, West Africa, Chad, Sudan, Yemen.
BATRAWY: That's Alex Marianelli, the World Food Programme's director in the UAE. I meet him at this U.N. global depot in Dubai, where nutritional food supplements are piling high.
MARIANELLI: Well, where we're standing, we're standing in a warehouse right now. It's a humanitarian warehouse.
BATRAWY: Inside this warehouse are boxes of World Food Programme supplements that were meant to sail from Dubai through the Strait of Hormuz. From there, they were supposed to go to Iran and then to Afghanistan, but because of the U.S.-Israeli war, virtually no ships have made it through the narrow waterway, including this U.N. shipment.
Floor to ceiling are just boxes and boxes and boxes of what they call super cereal. This is fortified wheat blend with sugar for malnutrition. And all of this was supposed to be essentially going to Afghanistan, and instead, they're just piling up here.
Walid Ibrahim, who heads the U.N.'s response here in Dubai, says they're having to reroute this aid.
WALID IBRAHIM: The disruptions that are happening with the shipping lines are real. But there are alternatives, and we are doing exactly that. We're exploring those alternatives. We're utilizing those alternatives.
BATRAWY: That includes flying aid out from Dubai, but Marianelli says the goods in this warehouse are too big to be sent by plane.
MARIANELLI: So we've brought it in to consolidate the shipment, and we're going to move it to Afghanistan by road, up north. That's the current plan.
BATRAWY: That's a long way.
MARIANELLI: It's a long way. It's a long way. It gives us - it's about a month longer than it would take by sea, but it's also more cost-effective based on the current environment.
BATRAWY: And in this current environment, Marianelli says the World Food Programme's operating costs around the world have gone up about 20% in just the last two weeks because of the ripple effects of the war.
Aya Batrawy, NPR News, Dubai. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor MessageBecome an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{1167:function(e,n,c){e.exports=c(323)},323:function(e,n,c){"use strict";c.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([c.e(1),c.e(2),c.e(3),c.e(4),c.e(84)]).then(function(e){c(3),c(1140),c(116),c(94),c(52),c(493),c(239),c(102),c(104),c(1141),c(143),c(1142),c(238),c(48),c(1143)}.bind(null,c)).catch(c.oe)}},[[1167,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();