Bizarre Police Response to Locust Invasion, Frantic Shooting Video Emerges

In the video, a man who appears to be donning police regalia can be heard ordering his friends not to waste bullets, but shoot with precision. 

“Mwambie apunguze risasi. Hakuna haja, zitaondoka. Sijawai ona kitu kama hiki. (Ask him to reduce the frequency of shooting. There is no need to waste bullets as these insects will leave in the end. But, I have never seen anything like this),” the man is heard in the video first published online by Citizen Digital.

Citizen TV went on to report that the locusts had entered the country through Somalia and their invasion posed a starvation threat to the region.

On December 18, the Food and Agriculture Organisation had warned that locusts would invade countries within the Horn of Africa and that the situation would worsen if not controlled by national authorities.

“As good rains fall over a large portion of the Ogaden and Somalia from Cyclone Pawan, many swarms are expected to remain in place, mature and lay eggs from late January onwards for another generation of breeding that would cause a substantial and dramatic increase in locusts,” a statement on FAO’s website read. 

An article by The Telegraph, a UK based publication, on Friday, December 27, also reported that farmers in southern Somalia shot at huge swarms of locusts with heavy machine guns with its reports based on a media outlet affiliated with the Somalia-based jihadist group Al-Shabaab.

A typical swarm of locusts could contain up to 150 million insects in a square kilometre.

Each locust can grow up to 4.3 inches long with Relief Web indicating that a swarm, which migrates with the wind, can cover up to 150 kilometres in a single day. 

Within 24hrs, it is reported that a swarm can consume what is the equivalent of a year’s worth of food for 2,500 people. 

According to ABC Science, while pesticides are the most commonly used control measure against locusts, there is a biological agent based on a fungus can be equally effective.

“The best time to spray locusts is during the nymph stage before they can fly,” Chris Adriaansen director of the Australian Plague Locust Commission with the US Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry stated in a past interview with the publication.

Fipronil, which is typically the most preferred pesticide, acts on the insect’s nervous system.

The alternative to pesticides alluded to in ABC Science report is a biological agent based on the spores of the naturally-occurring metarhizium fungus discovered in 1976 by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation on dead locusts in central Queensland.

It is thus baffling why the men in the video would have thought that shooting at the swarm that they had encountered would eliminate the insects. 

“Raiya wanasema, kele na risasi pekee ndio inaweza watoa hapa, (Civillians are saying that only noise and bullets can chase them from here),” a man is heard trying to rationalise their seeingly irrational decision. 

Video: Citizen TV