Wed 26 February 2020:
The plague of locusts ravaging East Africa has spread to the Congo, marking the first time the crop-chomping insects have been spotted in the country in 75 years.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said the cluster of desert locusts arrived on Friday on the western shore of Lake Alberta near the town of Bunia.
Since spawning on the Ethiopia-Somalia border, winds have blown the swarms inland where they have since blitzed a path of destruction through pastures in Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan and South Sudan.
Governments are scrambling to prevent the billion-strong swarms – comparable to cities the size of Moscow – from compounding starvation among the population.
Countries have employed aircraft and the army to spray the plants, while desperate locals have employed tactics like banging pots and pans or shooting at them.
The worst outbreak confronting East Africa in 70 years last week spread to South Sudan, where more than half the people already go hungry after years of bloody civil war.
The insects can destroy crops and devastate pasture for animals, and experts have warned that the outbreak is affecting millions of already vulnerable people across the region.
Uganda’s government said Tuesday it was trying to contain a large swarm and will need more resources to control the infestation that has spread to over 20 districts in the north.
Soldiers have been battling swarms using hand-held spray pumps, while experts have said aerial spraying is the only effective control.
The UN recently raised its aid appeal from $76million to $138million, saying the need for more help is urgent.
Experts have warned that the number of locusts if unchecked could grow 500 times by June, when drier weather is expected in the region.
A changing climate has contributed to this outbreak as a warming Indian Ocean means more powerful tropical cyclones hitting the region.
A cyclone late last year in Somalia brought heavy rains that fed fresh vegetation to fuel the locusts that were carried in by the wind from the Arabian Peninsula.
A new generation of the locusts has been growing up in the Somalia desert in recent weeks, preparing to take flight as the next wave headed toward Kenya, Ethiopia and beyond.
There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05.
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