UNITA to take UN team to plane crash site

The opposition UNITA movement says it has located the site of a second UN plane crash and will take a UN team to the area. According to UN spokesman Fred Eckhard, the pledge was given by UNITA officials in Paris on Tuesday to the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Security Affairs, Benon Sevan. Also on Tuesday, the Security Council called on UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi to cooperate “in good faith” in the search for possible survivors of two recent UN planes crashes in UNITA-controlled territory. In a resolution, the Council concluded Savimbi had not complied with demands to guarantee security and access in search and rescue operations. All UN flights were stopped last week after the two UN-chartered planes were shot down over UNITA-held territory in Angola’s central highlands area recently. Meanwhile, the UN has announced that a senior humantiarian affairs official, Martin Griffiths, is due in Luanda to review the situation on the ground and discuss the future of humanitarian operations in Angola where an estimated one million people are in need of urgent assistance. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is due to report to the Security Council by the end of this week on the Angolan situation and is expected to take a decision on whether to renew the mandate of the UN Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) which expires on 26 February.