Locust plague hits Egypt

FOR the first time in 50 years, millions - potentially billions - of locusts have swarmed into Cairo, posing a possible threat to the country’s agriculture industry and prompting authorities to initiate a pesticide-fuelled eradication programme.

At midday yesterday, the red insects could be seen flitting high in the sky, some landing on rooftops. By the evening, the skies were empty of the locusts.

Christian Pantenius, programme coordinator of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) office in Egypt, said strong southerly winds blew swarms of desert locusts into the Nile Delta region and further afield to the capital, Cairo. He said it was the first time locusts in such numbers had hit Cairo since the 1950s.

Small numbers of the ravenous insects were spotted in Egypt during a locust plague that struck countries from eastern to western African between 1986-89.

“People are very afraid that it (the locust swarm) may cause damage to agricultural production, but to what extent the agricultural sector could be damaged is difficult to say,” he said.

Egypt’s agriculture minister Ahmed el-Leithy said the locusts posed no threat to humans or crops “because the swarms are continuing to move and are not fully grown.”

He said there were 50 locust eradication teams using “all available pesticides and equipment in all Egyptian provinces in cooperation and coordination with FAO experts on fighting locusts.”