Crop-eating caterpillar to worsen South Sudan's hunger woes: U.N.

An infestation of fall armyworm, a crop-eating caterpillar that has ravaged fields across Africa, will deepen hunger in famine-threatened South Sudan, a U.N. official said on Wednesday.

Outbreaks have been reported in southern Equatoria, a key farming region near the border with Uganda, as well as in areas of the Northern Bahr el Gazal and Jonglei states, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

"We are already in a very fragile situation in South Sudan... this new pest is coming on top of the rest," Serge Tissot, the FAO representative in the country, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Even though South Sudan is no longer classified as being in famine, the number of families going hungry has increased in recent months, according to aid agencies.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-hunger-armyworm-idUSKBN1A417E

Peter Miller

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