THE INVASION OF THE DESERT LOCUST IN THE HORN OF AFRICA OR A COMING HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Apocalyptic vision: Swarms of billions of locusts fly and destroy everything in their path. Since early January, they have already ravaged Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. The swarm is now rampant in Uganda. After Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, Uganda was in turn invaded, Sunday, February 9, by swarms of locusts that attack the crops. In recent weeks, thick clouds of hungry insects have melted over the Horn of Africa, where the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has estimated that only one of these swarms covered an area of ​​2,400 km2 - the area of ​​Luxembourg.

Inestimable damage to the national emergency

Harmless when solitary, the locust moults, when a swarm forms, in voracious animal, which attacks any green vegetation. According to the FAO, the swarm of 2,400 km2 is made up of 200 billion people, who therefore consume 400,000 tonnes of food per day.

Capable of traveling 150 km per day, these insect clouds follow the prevailing winds and concentrated in late January in central Kenya and the southern half of Ethiopia. On February 10, the first insects were reported in Uganda and Tanzania. Many swarms are also found on the border between India and Pakistan. Two countries, Somalia and Pakistan, have declared a national emergency to deal with the situation.

In the Horn of Africa, farmers had already harvested their fields before the arrival of swarms. But pastoralists, who had already suffered three years of drought, were hit hard by an invasion that destroyed the livelihoods of their animals. If the threat of locusts has not been brought under control by the start of the next planting season around March, farmers could see their fields wiped out.

According to FAO, Ethiopia and Somalia had not seen swarms of locusts of such magnitude in 25 years, and Kenya had not faced a locust threat of such strength for 70 years. years.

How to explain this invasion ?

The Desert Locust, called “desert locust” in English, is native to the Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen. An area whose coasts were hit by two cyclones

in 2018. This significant precipitation favored the growth of vegetation and created the ideal conditions for the reproduction of insects.

The United Nations urged the international community on Monday to take immediate action to prevent the locust invasion from turning into a humanitarian disaster in the Horn of Africa, where countries in the region are engaged in a race against the shows to control the infestation.

A "really serious" threat to the UN

Locusts are a "really serious" threat in the Horn of Africa, Mark Lowcock, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters at the UN headquarters.

“There are 30 million people in the affected countries - Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia - who are already in serious food insecurity. At present, 10 million of them are also in areas affected by locusts, "he said.

"If we don't get this over the next two, three or four weeks, we're going to have a really, really serious problem," he said.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently appealed for US $ 76 million to control the spread of locusts. To date, barely $ 20 million has been received, said Lowcock.

“We simply cannot afford another major shock in a region where there is already so much suffering, vulnerability and fragility. That is why we must act quickly, "he said.




Paul Emison for DayNewsWorld