According to the Associated Press, they're back - with a second wave of the destructive, crop-eating insects up to 20x as large as the first which are swarming by the billions.

The young desert locusts have left their breeding grounds in Somalia, where they will search and destroy fresh vegetation resulting from seasonal rains. This in turn has caused locals to band together to try and combat them, only to risk spreading coronavirus, according to the report.

It is the locusts that "everyone is talking about," said Yoweri Aboket, a farmer in Uganda. "Once they land in your garden they do total destruction. Some people will even tell you that the locusts are more destructive than the coronavirus. There are even some who don't believe that the virus will reach here."

Some farmers in Abokat's village near the Kenyan border bang metal pans, whistle or throw stones to try to drive the locusts away. But mostly they watch in frustration, largely barred by a coronavirus lockdown from gathering outside their homes.

A failed garden of cassava, a local staple, means hunger. Such worries in the village of some 600 people are reflected across a large part of East Africa, including Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The locust swarms also have been sighted in Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania and Congo. -AP