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WORLD NEWS Friday 31 January 2020
UN: Africa’s locust outbreak needs $76M ‘by, actually, now’

By CARA ANNA the U.N. says. Authorities
Associated Press have said aerial pesticide
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — spraying is the only effec-
The worst locust outbreak tive control in the outbreak,
that parts of East Africa but officials in Kenya and
have seen in 70 years elsewhere have said more
needs some $76 million to planes and more pesticide
help control and the mon- are needed.
ey is “required by, actually, A single swarm can contain
now,” the United Nations up to 150 million locusts per
said Thursday. square kilometer of farm-
So far just $15 million has land, an area the size of al-
been mobilized to help stop most 250 football fields, re-
the outbreak that threat- gional authorities say. One
ens to worsen an already especially large swarm in
poor hunger situation for northeastern Kenya mea-
millions of people in Kenya, sured 60 kilometers long by
Ethiopia, Somalia and else- A desert locust sits on a maize plant at a farm in Katitika village, Kitui county, Kenya Friday, Jan. 40 kilometers wide (37 miles
where, Dominique Bour- 24, 2020. long by 25 miles wide).
geon, emergencies direc- Associated Press “We depend a lot on this
tor with the U.N. Food and The outbreak, blamed in der control until June when less,” FAO chief Qu Dongyu season and we worry that
Agriculture Organization, part on a changing cli- drier weather arrives, au- told the briefing. “So the the locusts will destroy our
told a briefing in Rome. mate, now threatens to thorities have said. timing, location, is crucial.” harvest and we end up
“You can imagine that a spread to South Sudan and But by then the number of Already the locusts, mov- remaining hungry through
country that has not seen Uganda and new rains locusts, if left unchecked, ing in swarms of hundreds the rest of the year, wait-
such a thing in 70 years is in the weeks to come will could grow 500 times, ex- of millions, have stripped ing for October for the
not well prepared,” he said fuel fresh vegetation and a perts have warned. some crops bare. An Ethio- next cropping season,”
of Kenya, East Africa’s eco- new wave of breeding. The “If after April the money has pian representative at the one farmer in Kenya’s Kitui
nomic hub. outbreak might not be un- come, it’s somehow use- briefing told the FAO that county, Esther Kithuka, has
some farmers in Africa’s told the FAO.
Egyptian archaeologists unveil second most populous na- Even before this outbreak,
tion have lost 90% of their nearly 20 million peo-
ancient tombs, artifacts production. ple faced high levels of
The locusts have been food insecurity across the
moving steadily toward East African region long
AHMED HATEM and MO- Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, the challenged by periodic
HAMED SALAH country’s breadbasket, droughts and floods.q
Associated Press
TUNA AL-GABAL, Egypt
(AP) — Archaeologists on
Thursday unveiled 16 an-
cient Egyptian tombs filled
with sarcophagi and other
artifacts from a vast burial
ground.
Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry
announced the discoveries
in the village of Tuna al-Ga-
bal, near the Nile Valley city
of Minya in central Egypt.
The site boasts an array of
previously excavated finds,
including funerary buildings This photo provided by Egypt’s antiquities ministry , shows one of
and catacombs filled with sarcophagi discovered in the village of Tuna al-Gabal, near the
thousands of mummified Nile Valley city of Minya. Associated Press
ibis and baboon birds.
The long-abandoned are molded into mummy- senior officials. The Ministry
tombs date back to three like figures of men. of Antiquities invited jour-
dynasties, from 664-399 BC, While such contents can nalists to tour the site, shep-
in the Pharaonic Late Pe- be looted or decay over herding film crews down
riod. time, Mostafa Waziri, sec- ladders into dark, narrow
Among the new treasures retary-general of Egypt’s shafts full of skeletons and
presented: 20 sarcophagi Supreme Council of Antiq- sarcophagi.
made from limestone and uities, described the tombs The Egyptian government
etched with hieroglyphic as “in good condition” and frequently promotes ar-
texts, five wooden coffins, the sarcophagi stone as chaeological finds to boost
hundreds of amulets and “well-polished.” its vital tourism sector. The
10,000 blue funerary stat- Waziri said the tombs like- industry was hard hit by po-
ues, known as ushabti figu- ly belonged to the high litical turmoil following the
rines, which are fixtures in priests of Thoth, the ancient 2011 popular uprising that
the ancient tombs of the Egyptian god of writing toppled longtime dictator
area. The sarcophagus lids and wisdom, among other Hosni Mubarak.q