Swarms of locusts ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa have reached South Sudan, already reeling from widespread hunger and years of civil war, the country’s agriculture minister said on Tuesday.
Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti are battling the worst locust outbreak in decades, and swarms have also spread into Tanzania and Uganda.
Desert locusts can travel up to 150km (95 miles) in a day and eat their own body weight in greenery, meaning a swarm just one kilometre square can eat as much food as 35,000 people in a day, according to the United Nations.
The invasion is worsening food shortages in a region where up to 25 million people are suffering after three consecutive years of droughts and floods.
Meshack Malo, South Sudan’s representative for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said the locusts were mature and looking for breeding grounds that would form the basis of the next major infestation.
“These are deep yellow, which means that they will be here mostly looking at areas in which they will lay eggs,” he said.
Teams planned to mark the place where they lay eggs and then come back to kill the young insects in 14 days, he said, since poisoning the eggs in the ground could damage the soil.
At least 2,000 locusts had crossed the border, he said. During each three-month breeding cycle, a single locust can breed 20 more, giving rise to the massive swarms that are now threatening crops on either side of the Red Sea.
Oil-rich South Sudan is recovering from five years of civil war that plunged parts of the country into famine in 2017 and forced a quarter of the population to flee their homes. In December, the UN’s World Food Programme said the food security outlook was dire after floods affected nearly a million people.