Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture has warned that desert locusts remain a threat in three counties as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) cautions that the swarms could soon find their way to West Africa.
Also, the FAO has now placed South Sudan, Ethiopia, Sudan, Pakistan and India on high alert during the next four weeks, says West Africa should take precautionary measures and preparatory steps to battle the locusts.
Recent forecasts by FAO have indicated a risk of locust invasion in West Africa from June 2020.
“Many countries now being hit by swarms of the pests have not seen locusts in recent memory and do not have the expertise to deal with them,” said Cyril Ferrand, head of the FAO’s resilience team in East Africa.
“This is the worst locust invasion we have seen in our generation,” says Sahal Farah of Docol, an International Rescue Committee partner organisation.Some of the swarms will take about a week to cross South Sudan to reach South Kordofan and South Darfur while others will move north to east and northern Ethiopia.
