“These are the hungriest insects I have ever seen. The swarm had laid eggs that had hatched. They were gone! We thought that was it, only to wake up to the biggest shock of our lives just two days later, on February 21.”Īs she and her husband walked through their farm, they realized that their compound was completely covered by millions of black nymphs. Mwikali and her family thought it was over. The locusts stayed on her farm for two weeks, ravaging her crops and trees.
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I was filled with despair because my crops were not even close to being ready for harvesting.” Places like Mandera had been in the news since December last year, but we never thought the locusts would get to us.
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Now we were witnessing the plague firsthand. “We had heard about the infestation in other parts of the country on the radio. In my 57 years, I have never seen anything like it! We went into deep shock! We have been farmers here our entire lives. There were so many that they looked like a dark cloud in the sky! They quickly descended on our farm. Seconds later, a massive swarm of locusts invaded our farm. This was very unusual, especially this time of the year. Suddenly we saw a flock of birds resembling eagles flying over our house. “It was Wednesday afternoon on February 5, 2020, at around 3:30 p.m.My husband and I were seated outside our home after working on the farm all morning. You can see the sadness in Mwikali’s face as she recounts the events that have suddenly changed her life and that of her family. Like many residents in Kenya, Mwikali relies heavily on her 10-acre farm to provide for her family.
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Living in rural Kenya, Mwikali is one of these farmers. Farmers and herders in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda have been forced to stand by helplessly as the locusts stripped their fields of everything green. Large swarms of desert locusts have been devastating pasture, crops, and fodder fields in eastern Africa since at least September 2019.