The branches on trees around Kenya’s northern town of Lodwar have been stripped bare of leaves, bending downwards under the weight of voracious young locusts.
Swarms of insects flew west from Yemen, and this year reached Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.
The new generation has hatched in Turkana, Kenya’s poorest region.
“The locusts have come to destabilise an already bad situation,” said Daniel Kirura, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Turkana.
“These things that jump up and down came here two days ago and have eaten all the trees,” said Michael, near Turkana’s capital Lodwar.
