Maize shortfall warning

Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Angolans are currently unable to access humanitarian assistance, but aid agencies warn of an even larger crisis from mid-July when maize supplies could dry-up. In its latest situation report, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that "although the overall humanitarian situation continues to improve, emergency pockets exist throughout the interior, particularly in areas where mine infestation and damaged infrastructure limit access". OCHA stated that at least 308,700 people in 24 areas were reportedly in critical need. Among those were "190,900 people who are isolated as a result of poor road conditions and mine infestation, and 117,800 who are living in areas that have not yet been accessed by humanitarian agencies". Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that "although sufficient quantities of most [food aid] commodities" were available to cover the estimated needs until July, "urgent contributions are required to avoid a breakdown in the maize pipeline in mid-July". "We can't have a breakdown in the pipeline at such an important time in Angola," WFP spokesman in Luanda, Marcelo Spina-Hering, told IRIN on Thursday. "Angola is ... in a process of peace consolidation and food is playing a vital role in this process. Now that people are moving a lot, [for example] in June there should be a lot of refugees coming back to the country, this [pipeline break] cannot, and should not, happen. We remain confident that although there are so many other needs around the world - in Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan - that we will get the contributions we need," he added. In order to remain operational until the end of the year, WFP requires 137,000 mt of food or the equivalent of about US $110 million. OCHA said humanitarian operations were currently focussed on three categories of caseloads: internally displaced persons (IDPs), former UNITA combatants and their families, and refugees. It was therefore critical to provide support to people returning to their areas of origin and resettlement. According to government figures, there were about 1.8 million people who remained internally displaced in Angola in April, including some 285,000 IDPs who continue to live in camps and transit centres. But more than 1.8 million IDPs have returned to their areas of origin, primarily in the provinces of Bié, Huambo, Huíla, Kuanza Sul and Malanje. "In addition, 130,000 Angolan refugees have spontaneously returned from neighbouring countries, predominantly to Kuando Kubango, Moxico, Uíge and Zaire provinces," OCHA noted. Government figures indicate that 296,439 former combatants and civilians have left the gathering areas where former UNITA soldiers and their families were quartered at the end of the 27-year civil war. Already, acute levels of malnutrition were present in 13 return sites where populations have been unable to establish food security, OCHA said. "Conditions are also precarious in many of the transit centres and tented camps where former UNITA combatants and their families are being accommodated en-route to their areas of destination. With the onset of the dry season, access is expected to expand, and resettlement activities to accelerate. The extension of basic services to most return sites, however, remains slow and will likely occur over the medium term," OCHA added. Spina-Hering emphasised that with such enormous population movements, access to food aid was critical. "Again, I would like to stress that food [aid] has been playing, if not the most, then one of the most important roles in this [peace] consolidation process. It is a basic need that people have in order to restart their lives. It's important to stress that we are not only giving food [to those in] emergency need, but we are contributing a lot in terms of projects aimed at giving people a fresh start," he added. Such initiatives took the form of food-for-work programmes which allowed the WFP to contribute towards rehabilitation projects like the construction of schools. "We are conducting awareness programmes on HIV, and next Saturday there's an inauguration of a new bridge we participated in constructing through food-for-work programmes," Spina-Hering noted. The bridge would increase humanitarian agencies' access to populations in need.