(JP) – The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned that an infestation of desert locusts in Sudan and Eritrea is rapidly spreading along both sides of the Red Sea towards Egypt and Saudi Arabia. According to an agency press release, heavy rains triggered two generations of breeding since October, leading to a substantial increase in the locust population. “The next three months will be critical in bringing the locust situation under control before the summer breeding starts,” FAO’s Senior
Locust Forecasting Officer Keith Cressman said. Earlier this year, the insects evoked biblical times when they showed up at holy sites in Mecca, covering some areas in darkness and sparking a thunderstorm of hail and fire on social media. “These locusts are normally present in low numbers in the desert and don’t cause a big problem. But following a large rainfall they can quickly multiply, eventually forming hopper bands or swarms of adults, composed of billions of individual locusts,” Cressman told The Media Line. READ MORE
