The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said its intensified anti-desert locust operations have resulted in the reduction in the number of swarms in Somalia in the past month.

FAO said in its desert locust situation update released on Thursday evening that its control operations are continuing against a limited number of small immature swarms in northeast Somalia that formed last month from local breeding.

"The control operations carried out in northeast Somalia during the past month have dramatically reduced the number of swarms that formed in the past three weeks," the UN food agency said.

According to FAO, a few immature swarms are still present in the northeast where they are likely to remain a bit longer than expected because local winds are concentrating them between Garowe, Las Anod, and Erigavo in northern Somalia and delaying their anticipated migration south-westwards across eastern Ethiopia to the border of Kenya.