Mogadishu - Residents of a central Somali town besieged by
locusts have taken an unusual approach to fighting the destructive
pests: eating them.
Locals in Adado have started consuming the insects that have invaded
their town and rural areas. Islamic scholars have declared them halaal
and so permissible to eat.
Pictures of people cooking and eating the locusts were circulating
widely Thursday on social media and on television broadcasts.
Some residents said that the insects are "delicious."
Somalia faces the worst outbreak of desert locust in more than 25
years, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
said in an emergency update issued on Wednesday.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/Berbera?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Berbera.1000snds of well fed locusts were resting in the road!slowed done the speed to allow them to scape! Had my mirrors down suddenly loads of locusts in the car.Almost lost control of the car but finally stopped & got out of the car.This time I was scaping. pic.twitter.com/SVRzxIxJhT
— Awale.I.Shirwa. (@Awale11)
The situation has been "exacerbated by exceptionally high rainfall
and cyclone Pawan," the FAO said. The invasive grasshoppers have
damaged crops and pasture in Ethiopia and Somalia, and will likely
spread to neighbouring countries if not stopped, it added.
"Limited resources and capacity compared to the immense scale of the
outbreak, coupled with continued insecurity in central and southern
Somalia, pose a serious challenge to combat this unprecedented
massive outbreak," the organization warned.