Alarm over East African locust swarms

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned the ongoing locust problem in East Africa could get even worse before it gets better.

A spokesman from the FAO has called for international aid to “avert any threats to food security, livelihoods, malnutrition.”

They further added that “the speed of the pests’ spread and the size of the infestations are so far beyond the norm that they have stretched the capacities of local and national authorities to the limit.”

They warn that if this surge is left unchecked, it could grow to 500 times its current size, devasting crops across the region and potentially leaving hundreds of thousands without food.

In what is being reported as the worst desert locust invasion in East Africa for 25 years, one swarm in Kenya was reported to be 40km wide.

An unusually wet period towards the end of last year in Yemen provided the perfect breeding conditions for the desert locusts, who made their way across the Red Sea into Somalia.

Political instability in both these countries meant it was extremely difficult for any to put measures in place to prevent the spread.

Locusts are best stopped at their source, but the fact that they were allowed to breed undetected for months in the Arab Peninsula has resulted in this outbreak.

There are fears that if nothing is done, they will continue to breed and spread into neighbouring Uganda and South Sudan.

Photo credit: Reuters