OPINION (ETH) – Recently we reported on how Kenya was experiencing the worst outbreak of locusts in 70 years. The report indicated that millions of locusts swarmed into the East African nation from Somalia and Ethiopia destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region with devastating hunger. Now a new report is indicating that the situation has gone from bad to worst as Somalia has officially declared a national emergency as the locusts swarms spread across east Africa.
According to BBC, The country’s Ministry of Agriculture said the insects, which consume large amounts of vegetation, posed “a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation”. There are fears that the situation may not be brought under control before the harvest begins in April. The report went on to say that the UN warned that the swarms are the largest in Somalia and Ethiopia in over 25 years. But neighboring Kenya has not seen a locust threat on this level in 70 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). A newly updated report by the FAO called for international help in fighting the swarms in the Horn of Africa, warned that the locust numbers across the region could grow 500 times by June.
When you hear of a locust swarm of this magnitude, you can’t help but think of the account from the book of Exodus, where the lord brought a plague of locusts upon the land of Egypt resulting in devastation across the land and destroyed their agriculture as a result.
“They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your parents nor your ancestors have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.’” – Exodus 10:5-6
