East Africa faces locust swarms, UN agency alerts for the risk of food insecurity across the subregion

New Desert Locust swarms are forming in the Horn of Africa, threatening agricultural livelihoods and food security of millions of people, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned. 

The Desert Locust crisis, which struck the greater Horn of Africa region earlier this year, could re-escalate as recent strong winds carried small mature yellow swarmlets from southern Somalia into eastern and northeastern Kenya, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, significant gains have been made against Desert Locust encroachment in East Africa and Yemen, with an estimated 720,000 tonnes of cereal saved from the swarms of migratory pests across 10 countries: enough to feed five million people a year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday.