The East African region could be on the verge of a famine if huge swarms of locusts devouring crops and pasture are not brought under control, a top UN official has told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would create a food crisis, Dominique Burgeon, director of emergencies for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Efforts to control the infestation have so far not been effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aerial spraying of pesticides is the most effective way of fighting the swarms but countries in the region do not have the right resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are fears that the locusts – already in the hundreds of billions – will multiply further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FAO says the insects are breeding so fast that numbers could grow 500 times by June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The UN body has now called on the international community to provide nearly $76m (\u00a358m) to fund the spraying of the affected areas with insecticide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“If it doesn’t, the situation will deteriorate and then you will need to provide massive food assistance for a humanitarian situation that may even get out of control,” Mr Burgeon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The locust invasion is the worst infestation in Kenya for 70 years and the worst in Somalia and Ethiopia for 25 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somalia has declared a national emergency in response to the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ethiopian government has called for “immediate action” to deal with the problem affecting four of the country’s nine states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kenya has deployed aircrafts to spray pesticides in several regions, while Uganda plans to send soldiers to northern regions to spray the affected areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The locusts are thought to have spread from Yemen three months ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The East African region could be on the verge of a famine if huge swarms of locusts devouring crops and pasture are not brought under control, a top UN official has told the BBC. It would create a food crisis, Dominique Burgeon, director of emergencies for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said. Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4099,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4098\/revisions\/4099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}