You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Locust Swarms in South Sudan Further Threaten Food Supply as COVID-19 Fears Mount

HeadlineMar 25, 2020

In South Sudan, massive swarms of locusts are devastating food crops across the country, further endangering a population that already faces the highest rate of food insecurity in the world. The desert locusts have swarmed across East Africa in numbers not seen since the early 2000s, with some climate scientists warning that worsening heat waves and tropical cyclones are making the swarms worse. This is South Sudanese farmer Lotok Joseph Okuera.

Lotok Joseph Okuera: “We are worried a lot, because this year if the government or NGOs fail to help us to destroy this thing, we will really be in big problem of hunger.”

Aid groups say increased hunger will only worsen problems for more than 200,000 people living in cramped United Nations camps who are now at risk of COVID-19 infection.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top