Locusts threaten crops in war-torn Darfur

Swarms of destructive locusts have crossed into northwestern Ethiopia and are threatening to wipe out crops in the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan, an insect control official said Monday.

"We have received reports from the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture that locust swarms ... are devastating farmlands covered with millet, sorghum as well as pasture land in Tigray and the Amhara regions," said Peter Odiyo, head of the Desert Locust Control Organization of East Africa.

He said Sudan's western region of Darfur, already suffering a humanitarian disaster because of a civil war, was most at risk.

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The Addis Ababa-based organization said it planned to launch air and ground pesticide spraying against the swarms as soon as its team of experts confirms the extent of the infestation.

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Locusts have also been reported in northern Somalia and along Ethiopia's border with Djibouti, and those reports were being checked, Odiyo said, although eastern Ethiopia, known as a locust breeding ground, was so far free of the insects.

According to a June report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, swarms originating in Guinea had moved across West Africa, eventually reaching Darfur before maturing and moving further east.