Pakistan announces national emergency after locust invasion

The Pakistani government announced a national emergency to counter an attack of desert locusts that are damaging crops in the province of Punjab, after destroying 22,000 acres (8,900 hectares) of farmland in Sindh province.
For the first time in the country’s history, the insects have also gone all the way to the north, reaching the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The invasions of 1993 and 1997 had affected only Punjab and Sindh.

National Food Security Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bak­h­tiar said the locust swarms were currently on the Pakistan-India border around Cholistan and were previously in Sindh and Balochistan, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported.