Call for more humanitarian assistance

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator for ROC, Georg Charpentier, has warned that both the humanitarian community and the government do not have the means to ensure an improvement in the situation over the next three to six months. Addressing a news briefing in New York recently, he said he was launching a "short-term and focused" appeal to help with two main initiatives: the return and resettlement of displaced people and a programme to buy up arms from the militias. Charpentier noted that an alarming aspect of the ROC crisis had been the enrolment of about 15,000 youths into military action and a lack of funds to reintegrate them into civilian life. In addition, some 350,000 people were displaced mostly in southern parts of the country which were outside the reach of humanitarian agencies. On the security situation, he acknowledged that the Angolan rebel group UNITA "wished to maintain a certain positioning" in southern parts of ROC. However there was no major evidence of UNITA's involvement in the conflict, although there had been references to training camps maintained by UNITA. He also noted a proliferation of militia groups who did not necessarily associate themselves with a particular opposition faction.