Image: Wikimedia Commons, Ivo Elbern
While the whole world is currently focusing on COVID-19, the unprecedented plague of locusts in the 8 countries of the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Uganda and Somalia) is being pushed into the background.
However, this plague of locusts is a huge threat to the people in the region. Their food security and livelihoods are at stake. It is important that locust control activities and their impact on livelihoods continue and expand, with local communities at the forefront.
There is an urgent need to release funds to enable the affected communities to cope with the potential loss of crops and grazing land, which is now even more critical given the additional threat posed by COVID-19, and to preserve the food security of the local population.
Dr Davis Ikiror, country director VSF-Suisse Kenya und Somalia