C. The Horn of Africa is a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the waters of the Indian Ocean. It covers about 770,000 square miles and is inhabited by roughly 115 million people in the nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Locust-hit Sudan and Kenya are not considered part of the horn.

Q: Hundreds of thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed by the locust swarms, threatening tenuous food supplies in a region also plagued by . . .

A. Drought

B. Flooding

C. Warfare

D. All of the above

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D. Climate extremes ranging from prolonged dry spells to tropical storms have ravaged crops and brought famine to the area’s people. Shortages have led to waves of migrants and increased warfare among groups vying for resources in the region. Violence disrupts both farming and the distribution of food.

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Q: This year’s invasion of desert locusts, considered the most dangerous locust species, originated on the Pakistan-India border in . . .

A. North Africa

B. East Asia

C. South Asia

D. West Africa

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C. Locust swarms can travel more than 90 miles a day and destroy ienough food crops to feed 2,500 people. Winds help carry the grasshoppers, which came west from south Asia to Africa.

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Q: In the Old Testament, locusts was one of the ten plagues suffered by which Mideastern people?

A. Babylonians

B. Egyptians

C. Israelites

D. Persians

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B. According to a story in the book of Exodus, the God of Israel inflicted ten plagues on Egypt to force the pharaoh to allow the Israelites to depart from slavery. The Middle East is a region comprising southwest Asia and northeast Africa. It is an area where ancient humans first began farming.

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