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Locusts invade sub-Saharan Africa; biggest swarms in years

Setting smoky bonfires of tires and trash, people in the West African country of Mauritania battled the sub-Sahara's largest locust invasion in more than a decade as swarms swept south from the desert.

Locusts settled on the desert capital of Nouakchott on Thursday in vision-blurring clouds, prompting traffic collisions and crunching underfoot with each step in sand-covered streets.

"It's beautiful to see and funny, the locusts on parade in the sky," marveled Aicha Bint Sadibouh, a woman in Nouakchott. "But when they invade the streets and homes, it's disastrous," Sadibouh said.

Moving at up to 100km a day, the crop-eating insects were settling at an estimated rate of 50 million per km2, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned. Experts warned of threats to vital rainy season planting, calling for urgent international action for an arid region perpetually on the edge of food shortages.

"Some farmers now are afraid to plant any more seeds; they're afraid once seeds germinate and the little plants come up, they will be attacked by the locusts," said Keith Cressman, a locust forecast officer with the Rome-based FAO.

"The last risk is that when the crops are ready to be harvested, around September, that will coincide with the formation of new swarms" from eggs being laid now, Cressman said. "That harvest could be seriously disrupted," making for a "very difficult summer" for farmers.

At risk are sustenance crops of millet, sorghum and other grains that feed millions in vulnerable Saharan states. Vegetable crops for markets likewise were in danger.

Swarms descended on Nouakchott on Wednesday, making good on weeks of warnings from African leaders and international agencies that unseasonably heavy rains to the north had spawned the northwest Sahara's largest locust infestation since 1988.
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