In the coming weeks, Northern Mali could face severe locust outbreaks, as a result of recent fighting and instability that has weakened the region's capacity to destroy the insects, according to experts.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) issued a desert locust warning last week (12 October) saying swarms are present in Chad and may start forming shortly in Niger and Mali. There are fears these locusts could threaten food security, as well as affecting the region's fragile education sector.
Recent conflicts with troops fleeing Libya, including Touareg rebels and Islamist groups, has destroyed almost all Northern Mali's capacity for preventing devastating locust swarms, according to Fabaka Diakité, coordinator of the National Centre for the Fight Against Locusts (CNLCP).
Research laboratories, research stations, and warning and prevention systems for locust outbreaks have all been destroyed. The region's capacity to distribute insecticides to communities has also been severely diminished, while the unstable situation in Libya, which usually prevents locust swarms from moving south, has undermined its ability to do so.
Since early September, the country has been under threat from a new locust invasion, according to the CNLCP and the FAO. Swarms have been detected in the Kidal region of northern Mali.
The FAO's alert said the swarms detected in Chad are expected to migrate north and west from Chad, Mali and Niger and arrive in western and central Libya, southern and central Algeria, and northwest Mauritania during the second half of October.
Some swarms could reach western Algeria, southern Morocco and the Western Sahara. There is also a risk that a few swarms could move towards cropping areas in central and western Mali.
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