The Ethiopia Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday said that it had dispatched several aerial planes to battle a locust invasion that has affected large parts of eastern and northern Ethiopia.
The ministry said in a statement that the aerial planes were dispatched to deal with a locust swarm that originally migrated from the Arabian Peninsula.
It said the locust swarm currently affecting large parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara, Afar and Somali regions as well as Dire Dawa city administration.
The ministry said it had dispatched dozens of experts to help with the efforts to battle the locust invasion which is threatening millions of hectares of agricultural lands.
In addition to the Ethiopian government’s efforts to fight the locust swarm, regional administrations had also mobilised tens of thousands of volunteers to fight the locust invasion threat.
In July, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned over the danger of Desert Locust summer breeding that “can pose a serious threat to agricultural production areas of Yemen, Sudan, Eritrea and parts of Ethiopia and northern Somalia during the next three months”.
