Locusts threaten to compound hunger crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – The National

Locusts threaten to compound hunger crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – The National

Locust swarms forming in northern Ethiopia are threatening to aggravate an already severe food shortage faced by millions of people in the Tigray region after nearly a year of civil war, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has said.

A report published last week by the Food and Agriculture Organisation said the crop-destroying insects, first spotted in mid-September in the north-eastern Afar region, are likely to have spread to neighbouring Tigray and Amhara.

“We are extremely concerned about the possible impacts of desert locusts on northern Ethiopia’s upcoming cereal harvest season,” Cyril Ferrand of the FAO’s Eastern Africa resilience team told The National. “People in the region can ill afford to lose one grain of the already reduced harvest.”