NOUAKCHOTT,
August 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Swarms of dreadful
locusts invaded the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, darkening the
skies over the northwest African country before swooping down to
devour everything arable in sight, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported
Thursday, August 5.
Orchards
of fruit and nut trees were the preferred targets of the locusts,
which have attained plague status across north and west Africa this
year, spreading across 6.5 million hectares (16 million acres) of
agricultural land in the Maghreb nations of north Africa and the Sahel
region to the south, the AFP added.
The
city's inhabitants lit fires and rattled tin boxes filled with stones
to try to chase away the insects, which are swarming down from North
Africa and threaten to unleash the region's worst locust crisis for 15
years, said the Reuters news agency.
"The
authorities have done nothing to stop this invasion. It'll destroy our
crops and make us poorer," said Diop, a young Mauritanian trying
to protect his city center vegetable plot
The
arrival of the tenacious winged insect in Nouakchott was preordained
as they have already swept across the agricultural and pastoral zones
in the interior of the massive country, which is larger than France
and Spain combined, according to AFP.
Mauritania
has appealed for international aid to combat the scourge.
Ministers
from Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal
and Tunisia met last month to discuss regional efforts to deal with
the locust problem, which the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has
warned will destroy entire fields of maize, cassava and other staple
regional crops.
One
tone of locusts -- a very small portion of an average swarm -- eat as
much food in one day as 2,500 people.
Locust
Eats Soccer Field
The
massive locust swarm also swept parts of the city's main soccer field,
residents said.
France
has said it is sending a team of experts from agronomical research
center CIRAD to Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Niger -- all former
French colonies -- to assess the scale of the latest invasion.
European
donors have contributed two million euros ($2.4 million) to beef up an
emergency fund run by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO).
