UN official deeply concerned

The UN's senior humanitarian coordinator in Angola said on Tuesday the international community would soon face a new "human tragedy" in Africa if the Angola crisis became another "forgotten emergency". In an interview with IRIN, Francesco Strippoli, the UN humanitarian coordinator and WFP representative, said he was concerned that the Kosovo crisis, while every bit as dire, was diverting attention away from Angola. With nearly one million people internally displaced by fighting between government forces and the UNITA rebel movement since December, Strippoli warned that the country was now was "on the edge of a human tragedy" in coming months. With most displaced people sheltering in besieged government-held cities, he said they depended more than ever on aid flown in because most roads in the country were too dangerous to use. "There will be a human tragedy if security now prevents us flying in," he said. Yet the response from the donor community had "not been really good", and donors, he said, were still to meet the UN's appeal last December for US $67 million. In the meantime, the magnitude of the crisis was now such that the appeal would have to be revised upwards to US $100 - 115 million. "Angola cannot become a forgotten emergency because it is real, it is live, a tragic humanitarian situation," Strippoli said. He cited the example of Malanje, a besieged government held provincial capital some 350 km east of Luanda crammed with an estimated 100,000 displaced people. Despite months of sporadic shelling by UNITA forces, WFP had dispatched emergency supplies by road. "There have been many attacks along this road in recent months. Cars and lorries have been attacked and set alight, their cargoes stolen and those in the vehicles killed. Our vehicles have still however managed to get through without incident so far," he said. If the road became too insecure, it was by no means guaranteed that it would be safe enough to fly supplies in he said. Earlier, Western diplomats and other humanitarian sources, said malnutrition was already becoming a problem in Malanje because of distribution problems. MINARS, the government welfare office coordinating distribution, has insisted that supplies were not being diverted, but that there simply was not enough to go round.