Locust control center announces most Yemeni governorates as locust free [Archives:2007/1088/Local News]

Fatima Al-Ajel
SANA'A, Sept. 23 ) While it may take until May next year to control locusts in Yemen, the Locust Control Center declared a number of governorates as locust free. And with the assistance from Saudi Arabia at the end of this month, more work will be done to prevent them from spreading further to neighboring countries.

An intensive campaign, carried out by 19 anti- locust teams have already controlled the speedily spreading of locust swarms in Aden Gulf and some areas in the Lahj and Abyan coastline south of Yemen.

Some governorates towards the north have also been announced clear such as Marib and al-Jawf. However further to the far east of Yemen, Shabwa and Hadrmout are still suffering from increasing spread locusts, according to the Director-General of Yemen's Desert Locust Control Centre Abdu Fara Al-Romaih.

“We are in the final stages of controlling the spread of locusts in these two areas and we predict to control the locust movements by the end of this month