According to Relief Web, the leading online source for reliable and timely humanitarian information on global crises and disasters since 1996, “faces a particularly worrisome situation” in regards to its current Desert Locus infestation.
The organization wrote in its latest statement, “In Yemen, ground control operations continue on the northern and central coast of the Red Sea and, on a much smaller scale, on the Gulf of Aden coast where hopper bands were decreasing as fledging occurred and new immature groups and swarms were forming in all areas. A few immature swarms were seen in the foothills near the Saudi Arabia border and Sada’a, and northwest of Aden.”
The United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization, which has been monitoring Yemen’s Desert Locusts population for some time, aware of the danger it poses to the impoverished Yemeni nation, where already over 40% of people have been classified at food risk by World Food Program.
Back in November, when the threat first arose, FAO announced its teams “had sprayed about 8,000 hectares in Yemen in the first 10 days of November.” It added, ““Intensive survey and control operations should be maintained.”
According to FAO data, “a swarm of locusts covering a square kilometre can eat between 80 and 160 metric tons of crops a day, and an adult desert locust can eat its own weight of about 2 grams daily. Swarms can cover several hundred square kilometres, with 40 million to 80 million of the insects per square kilometre,” hence the treat those insects pose is very real and could within days lay waste entire farmlands.