Food pipeline breaks expected in new year

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of possible breaks in the food pipeline in Namibia in January if it does not secure donor funding soon. Between 17,000 and 22,000 refugees, mainly from Angola, are accommodated at the Osire refugee camp at any given time. Most rely solely on WFP food rations.

Penelope Howarth, head of the WFP sub-office in Namibia told IRIN on Monday: "We are going to be asking for renewed donor support to allow us to continue feeding refugees in Osire in 2002. We have food to last us until January, when we expect to start experiencing pipeline breaks in key commodities."

She said WFP was in the process of finalising its Namibian projects for 2002 and that as soon as the projects were approved, the agency would issue an appeal to donors. Howarth could not speculate on the cost on next year's projects, but said that the agency had budgeted for US $1.4 million for 2001.

This money she said would last only until the end of December. "We were lucky this year in that we had almost full funding thanks to Sweden, the US and Finland," she added.

Howarth said the agency had already begun registering recipients for next year and had started introducing "beneficiary cards" with beneficiaries' pictures on them to ensure that those receiving rations qualified.

"The reason we want to have photos on the ration cards is because each household has a ration card and the primary beneficiary (usually the mother or woman in the family) collects food on behalf of the family. We want to make sure we are feeding the right beneficiaries, so that when people leave the camp, we can detect this," she said. UNHCR, in cooperation with WFP, the Namibian government and the Norwegian Refugee Council is in the process of issuing the cards

In another development, Namibia's National Society for Human Rights has attributed a reported drop in the number of Angolan men entering Namibia since a curfew was imposed on the border in October to "forced recruitment" into the Angolan army and rebel UNITA forces.

Zen Mnakapa of Namibia's National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) told IRIN: "The answer (to why the number of male refugees has decreased) is that males are separated from their families and taken for conscription into the Angolan government forces. UNITA is also doing the same thing." He said Namibian government and army sources had provided the NSHR with the information.

In a statement earlier, the NSHR said: "Human rights monitors in the Owambo, Kavango and Caprivi districts, as well as in Windhoek, were severally informed by military, immigration and other sources that Namibian authorities are secretly conscripting young men to serve in the Angolan armed forces. Although the majority of young men so recruited are 'illegal immigrants' from Angola, some are lawful Namibian residents who possess the country's civic documents."

In November the Angola government anounced a conscription drive to draft young men into the army.

The NSHR said in the 25 November statement that human rights monitors reported a large group of men and women being rounded up in the northwestern, central and northeastern parts of the country, under the pretext that they were "illegal immigrants. The group was detained for about four days at the Katima Mulilo police station, according to the statement.

Then, on 24 November, it added: "A group of approximately 75 men - between the ages of 18 and 30 years - was then separated from the women and bundled into an immigration prison truck heading for the Oshikango border post, some 800 km northwest of Windhoek, the Namibian capital. Immigration sources informed NSHR that the men were to be handed over to Angolan armed forces as conscripts as part of a countrywide military call-up exercise currently under way in Angola."

Responding to questions from IRIN on Monday, UNHCR spokesman David Nthwengwe said that the monitoring of security was not its responsibility, making it difficult for the agency to confirm the reports of forced conscription. However, he added that if asylum seekers approached UNHCR with specific complaints, then the agency could assist.