Swelled by Rain and COVID Curbs, Locust Swarms Ravage Ethiopia

Ahmed Ibrahim, 30, an Ethiopian farmer attempts to fend off desert locusts as they fly in his khat farm on the outskirt of Jijiga in Somali region, Ethiopia January 12, 2020. (Reuters)
Ahmed Ibrahim, 30, an Ethiopian farmer attempts to fend off desert locusts as they fly in his khat farm on the outskirt of Jijiga in Somali region, Ethiopia January 12, 2020. (Reuters)
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Swelled by Rain and COVID Curbs, Locust Swarms Ravage Ethiopia

Ahmed Ibrahim, 30, an Ethiopian farmer attempts to fend off desert locusts as they fly in his khat farm on the outskirt of Jijiga in Somali region, Ethiopia January 12, 2020. (Reuters)
Ahmed Ibrahim, 30, an Ethiopian farmer attempts to fend off desert locusts as they fly in his khat farm on the outskirt of Jijiga in Somali region, Ethiopia January 12, 2020. (Reuters)

Widow-of-ten Marima Wadisha screamed, threw rocks and in her desperation even fired bullets at the locusts that descended on her sorghum fields in northeast Ethiopia.

But the insect swarms were so relentless that her entire crop - her family’s only source of income - was destroyed.

“They never left for a week. We are left with an empty harvest, we tie our waist and cry day and night. How can (I) feed ... my children like this,” she said, surrounded by five of them as she held a bundle of damaged sorghum.

The locust invasion is Ethiopia’s worst in 25 years, United Nations food agency FAO says.

It has damaged an estimated 200,000 hectares of land there since January, threatening food supplies - a single square kilometer swarm can eat as much food in a day as 35,000 people - and the livelihoods of millions.

It is part of a once-in-a-lifetime succession of swarms that have plagued East Africa and the Red Sea region since late 2019, with the coronavirus pandemic exacerbating the crisis this year by disrupting the FAO’s supply chain of pesticides and other equipment to fight them off.

“The biggest challenge now in the region is here, in Ethiopia and we are working on that together with our partners like the FAO,” said the Desert Locust Control Organization’s Eastern Africa Director for Eastern Africa Stephen Njoka.

Conflict and chaos in Yemen, where some of the swarms originated, have made spraying pesticide by airplane at source impossible. That combined with unusually heavy rains have swelled the swarms spreading across Ethiopia.

The World Bank has said the insects could cost East Africa and Yemen $8.5 billion this year, and the FAO’s Ethiopia representative Fatouma Seid fears the pattern of destruction will be repeated next year.

“Infestation will continue into 2021. We are being re-invaded and the swarms will then go to Kenya,” she said.



Death Toll in Pakistan Building Collapse Rises to 27

Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
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Death Toll in Pakistan Building Collapse Rises to 27

Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
Rescue workers recover a victim's body during a search operation amidst the debris of a collapsed building in Karachi on July 5, 2025. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)

Rescue teams were in the final stages of clearing the wreckage of a five-story building that collapsed in Pakistan's mega city of Karachi killing 27 people, officials said Sunday.

Residents reported hearing cracking sounds shortly before the apartment block crumbled around 10:00 am on Friday in Karachi's impoverished Lyari neighborhood, which was once plagued by gang violence and considered one of the most dangerous areas in Pakistan.

"Most of the debris has been removed," Hassaan Khan, a spokesman for government rescue service 1122 told AFP, adding that the death toll stood at 27 on Sunday morning.

He expected the operation to finish by the afternoon.

Authorities said the building had been declared unsafe and eviction notices were sent to occupants between 2022 and 2024, but landlords and some residents told AFP they had not received them.

"My daughter is under the rubble," 54-year-old Dev Raj told AFP at the scene on Saturday.

"She was my beloved daughter. She was so sensitive but is under the burden of debris. She got married just six months ago."

Roof and building collapses are common across Pakistan, mainly because of poor safety standards and shoddy construction materials in the South Asian country of more than 240 million people.

But Karachi, home to more than 20 million, is especially notorious for poor construction, illegal extensions, ageing infrastructure, overcrowding, and lax enforcement of building regulations.