North African neighbours Chad and Niger on Tuesday appealed for international aid to battle an infestation of desert locusts, warning their already compromised populations could suffer food shortages if the swarms remain unchecked.
Millions of the finger-length insects have deluged the desert nations at the height of their crucial planting seasons, devouring seedlings and existing crops of millet and sorghum that are staples of the countries’ already meagre diets.
”Chad is imploring our friends and international agencies to help us battle these ravaging beasts and dispel the threat of famine for our people,” Foreign Minister Nagoum Yamassoum told diplomats in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.
Chad’s food supplies are already exhausted owing to the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the troubled Darfur region of eastern neighbour Sudan.
The arrival on Monday of the first locust swarms in Chad, a desert nation of eight million, will only put greater pressure on the limited food supply, Yamassoum said.
Chad lacks all the major resources needed to combat the infestation, he added, as it is without vehicles, equipment, pesticides — and even a telecommunications system that can effectively track and monitor the advancing hordes.
Niger put a price tag of €215 400 on its locust-fighting needs, which will be used to protect about 750 000ha under threat from the swarms.
The landlocked country has just €172 000 available for its emergency anti-locust campaign, task force coordinator Garba Yahaya said. This has hamstrung Niger’s three-week-old surface campaign against the winged menace.
Niger has less than a third of the 364 000 litres of pesticides it needs to protect its arable lands, which are the only source of income for eight million of its 10-million people.
Two-thirds of Niger, about 1,2-million square kilometres, are desert and yield little in the way of crops. Areas under cultivation have been beset by drought over the past four years, further compounding Niger’s urgency in the battle against the locusts.
About 20 000 hectares of cropland have already been destroyed by the locusts, and there are worrying signs that the swarms are fast advancing on the south and the centre of Niger, the lone fertile belt in the impoverished desert state. — Sapa-AFP