UNICEF concern at Kosovo impact in Africa

In New York this week, UNICEF said in a statement it was concerned that the Kosovo crisis could "eclipse" the plight of more than 22 million other people in the world also displaced by war and civil conflicts. It cited the crises in Angola, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Ethiopia "and other places where thousands of people are displaced from their homes, tortured and killed every day". UNICEF said that in the first four months this year, the renewal of the war in Angola had forced 780,000 people to abandon their homes, bringing to 1.5 million the estimated number of internally displaced people roaming the country. "Some 450,000 refugees have poured out of Sierra Leone into Guinea and Liberia over the course of an eight-year conflict characterised by brutality, rape and mutilation," the statement said.