Hunger stalks Malange

More than two people die daily through lack of food in the besieged city of Malange, crammed with tens of thousands of displaced people, Angolan TV reported this week. "The situation in Malange is extremely difficult," WFP spokeswoman Maria Flynn told IRIN on Thursday. Although unable to verify the Angolan TV report, she acknowledged that people could be dying from malnutrition or malnutrition-related diseases in a city tenuously linked to the rest of the country by its airport - intermitently shelled by UNITA rebel forces. There have been no food deliveries to Malange since the end of May. But Flynn said that WFP food stocks, enough for two months rations for the "most vulnerable", were handed over to the agency's partners in the city for distribution in mid-June. However, as with the rest of Angola, the rations do not cover all of the needy. There are 800,000 people officially registered as requiring food aid across the country, a figure which does not include all of the displaced. But WFP only has the food stocks to reach 500,000 people, and only up until mid-September. Priority feeding goes to children under five, pregnant women, the sick, elderly, infirm and newly arrived displaced. "One hopes the others will have some other coping mechanisms," Flynn said. In response to the agency's most recent appeal, WFP has received pledges for a total of 20,000 mt of food from the European Community, Germany and France. "But with the time it takes to process, load and unload, it's doubtful the food will reach here before September," Flynn added.