Concern at situation in Malanje

Humanitarian officials in Angola said on Monday they were growing increasingly worried about the besieged government-held city of Malanje because shelling by UNITA rebels had made it impossible to conduct a humanitarian assessment mission and had also brought a stop to emergency food deliveries. Malanje, some 450 km east of the capital, Luanda, has been the scene of sporadic shelling for nearly four months during which the city has been crammed with tens of thousands of internally displaced people. The official told IRIN a new date for an assessment mission was still being decided, but he said concern “is growing daily because of the shelling and the toll it is taking”. Insecurity along the road had also forced WFP to temporarily stop food deliveries to the town - the only major provincial capital still served by road deliveries until recently. For months, the humanitarian community has been forced to fly food to most other besieged provincial towns because landmines and attacks along the roads had made them too dangerous to use. He said the situation had forced humanitarian staff in Malanje to provide what food stocks remained only to children, pregnant women, elderly people, the disabled and sick.