KABUL, May 7: A plague of locusts of “almost biblical proportions” is threatening Afghanistan, a country wrecked by years of fighting, drought and food shortages, a senior international aid official said on Monday.

By the hundreds of millions, the locusts are marching across areas of northern Afghanistan, threatening up to 70 per cent of crop production and millions of livelihoods.

“It’s a problem of almost biblical proportions,” said Richard China, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization’s programme manager in Afghanistan.

“We estimate that it’s the worst infestation in the last 30 years,” he said.

Locusts are endemic to the plains that lie north of the Hindu Kush mountains, the traditional breadbasket of Afghanistan.

Normally the problem is kept under control by local farmers digging narrow trenches around infested areas to trap young locusts, which cannot fly.

But this year, the problem has mushroomed to proportions not seen since the late 1970s.

“This is due to a combination of lack of control in recent years due to political instability and the difficulty of getting into the areas (because of security),” China said.

The international community’s lack of interest in Afghanistan over the years has starved the fight against locusts of precious resources, he added.

To fight the army of insects marching towards the crop growing areas, the FAO and several nongovernmental organisations have deployed 1,300 hand-held sprayers and five vehicles mounted with machines to spread pesticide.

“So far, we appear to be winning the battle,” China said.

With the help of the FAO, local farmers are targeting the arid areas that lie between the locusts and the farmlands.

In Baglan province north of Kabul, several thousand farmers dressed in orange boiler suits were out in the fields spraying the ground, which appeared to shimmer under a sea of locusts.

“It’s incredible — the ground looks as if it’s moving, there’s so many of them,” said one traveller who had just returned from the region.

China estimated that crops, mainly wheat, worth 60 million dollars on local markets, were at stake from the plague.

Afghan refugees: Nearly half a million Afghan refugees have gone home since a UN repatriation programme began in March but some areas require more security for people to return, said the head of the UN’s refugee agency on Tuesday.

Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said 473,000 people had been repatriated since March 1. Of these, 430,000 were from Pakistan and 30,000 from Iran.—Reuters