KAMPALA — Locusts, COVID-19 and deadly flooding pose a “triple threat” to millions of people across East Africa, officials warned Thursday, while the World Bank announced a $500 million program for countries affected by the historic desert locust swarms.
A new and larger generation of the voracious insects, numbering in the billions, is on the move in East Africa, where some countries haven’t seen such an outbreak in 70 years. Climate change is in part to blame.
The added threat of COVID-19 imperils a region that already was home to about 20 percent of the world’s population of food-insecure people, including millions in South Sudan and Somalia. (AP)
