The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN is continuing its efforts to contain the desert locust upsurge in East Africa despite restrictions on the movement of personnel and equipment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

East Africa is going through a massive desert locust infestation that’s stripping farming families of food and income and threatening the food security of millions throughout the region.

FAO Director-General QU Dongyu has welcomed a €17 million contribution from Germany to provide assistance to those directly affected by the desert locust upsurge in East Africa.

East Africa is a region beset by climate- and conflict-related shocks. Millions of people are already acutely food insecure. Now they face another major hunger threat in the form of desert locusts.

Some 6.5 million people in South Sudan - more than half of the population - could be in severe acute food insecurity at the height of the lean season (May-July), three United Nations agencies warned today.