Locusts Invade Flood-Hit Fields in Sudan
Date: 07-Sep-07
Country: SUDAN
Author: Andrew Heavens
An officer from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) said she had unconfirmed reports that insects had started
destroying crops in one remote region near the Eritrean border.
A Sudanese agriculture official said Khartoum was sending
fast-response teams to four regions -- one just 90 km (56 miles)
northwest of the capital Khartoum -- where locusts have been
seen laying eggs or hatching.
Wegdan Abdel Rahman, from the FAO's office in north-eastern
Kassala region, said farmers had been bringing in reports of
devastated crops.
"The farmers said the locusts had eaten everything, pasture
and sorghum," she said.
"Of course this is very worrying," said Rabie Khalil,
director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry's Locust
Control and Research Centre.
The locusts have appeared in areas heavily hit by floods and
the spread of disease. The worst floods in Sudan in living
memory have already killed 122 people, destroyed over 50,000
hectares (125,000 acres) of agricultural land and killed some
36,000 heads of livestock.
On Wednesday, a World Health Organisation official said
acute watery diarrhoea spread by flood waters in Kassala and
other parts of eastern Sudan has killed 58 people and left
nearly 1,000 others ill.
The FAO's global Locust Watch team on Monday warned that
immature swarms of desert locusts, already active in Yemen,
could move across the Red Sea into Eritrea and Sudan.
Khalil, of Sudan's Locust Centre, said he would not know the
full extent of the Sudanese situation until his teams reported
back over the weekend.
"We have had good early warning. The government is standing
by with funds," he said, adding that without proper spraying,
the locusts could turn into full blown swarms by October.
Large numbers of locusts have been spotted in northwest of
Khartoum in the North Kordofan region, the northern River Nile
region, close to the Eritrean border in Kassala and the Tokar
Delta leading into the Red Sea.