UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock on Monday (February 10th) expressed his deep concern over the swarms of locusts that are developing in East Africa.

"There are 13 million people in the affected countries who have difficulty accessing food. Ten million of these people live in areas affected by locusts," he said at a conference. press at UN headquarters.

Specifying that he had recently released $ 10 million in emergency funds to fight this calamity, the UN official warned that "if a rapid response" fails, the international community will face "a huge problem later". during this year". "If we cannot put an end to" the issue in the coming weeks, "we risk having a very serious problem," he insisted.

Aid plan "76 million dollars"

He said the United Nations Agency for Agriculture and Food (FAO) had estimated at the end of January "76 million dollars" the cost of a plan to control locusts. "So far, we have only had $ 20 million," he said.

Referring to a consequence of global warming, Mark Lowcock said that this development of locusts was "the worst for 70 years for Kenya, and the worst for 25 years for Ethiopia or Somalia".

Desert Locust swarms devastate the food supply of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. They have been reported since Sunday in Uganda. If the phenomenon were to worsen, over a year or more, it would become an "invasion" of locusts. There were six locust "invasions" in the 20th century, the last of which occurred in 1987-1989.

With AFP

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