Pages on social media circulated a video clip whose publishers claimed it documents swarms of locusts spreading in areas of the Al-Ghab Plain in the Hama countryside, amid fears of their impact on agricultural crops.
The fact-checking team followed up on the report and, by reviewing official and open sources, found a clarification issued by the Ministry of Agriculture denying what is being circulated about locusts spreading in the Al-Ghab Plain.
The ministry explained that the insects that appeared in the area are local grasshoppers, and that their presence is confined to the banks of the irrigation channels within a limited range extending from Qabr Fidda to Al-Ashrafiyeh, over a distance of no more than about one kilometre. It also noted that field teams had been directed to carry out chemical control work, alongside continued monitoring of locust movement in the area in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization. The ministry confirmed that there are so far no indications that locusts have reached Syrian territory.
Why is this claim misleading?
False context: Scenes of local insects were described as evidence of locust swarms spreading in the Al-Ghab Plain, while the circulating information does not match the official data on what actually appeared in the clip.
