Yemen is facing its worst locust outbreak in nearly 15 years, with large areas of the country now infested by the insects, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The FAO said this week the situation was set to get worse, with locust numbers likely to increase dramatically as a second generation of breeding continues, and warned that agricultural crops in areas such as Wadi Hadhramaut and the Sana’a highlands could be at risk.
Huge swaths of Yemen’s remote interior along the southern edge of the Empty Quarter, stretching from Marib to the Oman border, are now swarming with locusts, the FAO said.
The FAO is organising a $5 million emergency aerial response campaign later this month, but warned if it was not successful there was a risk of swarms forming and invading countries along both sides of the Red Sea during the autumn.
Even a very small swarm can eat as much food in one day as about 2,500 people, the FAO said.
The regional office of the FAO is holding a 10-day training session in Damascus, Syria, starting on Saturday to train people on combating the insects, it said in a statement reported by the Kuwait News Agency.
The session is aimed at training staff to combat the progress of swarms of locusts in case of sudden attacks, the statement said.
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