Situation in remote town desperate

Over 100,000 people are in urgent need of assistance in the town of Mavinga, in Angola's remote southern Kuando Kubango province. The area only became accessible to humanitarian agencies following the April peace agreement between the government and former rebel group, UNITA. UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Angola, Erick de Mul, visited the town last week and described the humanitarian situation in Mavinga as alarming. "Mavinga is in the province that is furthest away from the capital Luanda, it's not a very heavily populated area, but it's a poor area and far away from everything. It is ... difficult to organise the logistics there and there are frantic [efforts] to make sure we have enough food aid and things like medicines in place before the rains start," De Mul told IRIN on Monday. Three NGOs and one UN agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), are working in Mavinga, despite poor road conditions, broken bridges and mine infestation making access difficult, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement. "We are very worried about the situation in Mavinga. Of the new areas that have become accessible to humanitarian partners since April, this has been one of the most difficult to stabilise. Access is very difficult. The roads and bridges need repair and the airstrip is wearing down from all the flights bringing in assistance. The sheer numbers of people in need in Mavinga and surrounding areas is overwhelming," De Mul was quoted as saying. OCHA said two quartering and family reception areas for former UNITA rebels and their relatives, Capembe and Chimongua, were established near Mavinga in May. By late August, more than 74,000 ex-combatants and their families had gathered in these locations. The situation in Mavinga and the quartering areas deteriorated sharply after a mine incident in August led to closure of the airstrip for several weeks. This delayed the delivery of food aid. Since 22 August, when the airstrip re-opened, four rotations of WFP cargo aircraft have been arriving daily, bringing more than 1,000 mt of food assistance into the stricken area every month. "The priorities right now are to increase the amount of potable water available in the town and to pre-position food before the rainy season begins. Other priorities include distribution of non-food emergency items, including blankets, and demining [operations]. We must move quickly before the rains make the situation even worse. In order to stabilise the situation, however, we must have additional resources," De Mul said. While international donors had been generous in their response to the 2002 Inter-Agency Appeal for Angola, more funds were urgently required, De Mul added. "We've received half of what we requested this year, but we need more. Operations in remote places like Mavinga are expensive and we still need to expand activities to assist populations in areas we have not yet been able to reach. "We're also concerned about locations where populations are returning. In mid-September, we received reports from the field that more than 10,000 people per day were returning to their places of origin. So, in addition to emergency interventions, we must immediately increase activities focusing on resettlement and return. We have to support all efforts to ensure that the pre-conditions specified in the government's legal framework for return are respected at this crucial time," De Mul noted. The 2003 Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal, currently being developed in consultation with the Angolan government, national and international humanitarian partners and donors, will focus on life-saving, resettlement and return activities. The UN has continued to conduct assessments throughout the country to identify and prioritise the most critical needs in close collaboration with the government and humanitarian agencies, OCHA said.