Oxfam voices concern about IDPs

The international humanitarian organisation Oxfam says the Angolan government is responding inadequately to the needs of people displaced by the civil war. Speaking at the end of a visit to Angola, Oxfam’s director Barbara Stocking said an end to the war was the only way out of the humanitarian crisis in the country, and called on the international community to support a negotiated peace.

The Oxfam delegation had just returned from Bié province in the central highlands, where nearly 200,000 people are living in displaced people’s camps and are heavily dependent on aid.

“The government must take responsibility for its own people - its response to internally displaced people is completely inadequate,” Stocking told journalists in Luanda. “In particular in the places which are insecure, where the humanitarian agencies cannot go, the government must take responsibility for getting food to those people.”

Stocking called on the Angolan government and the rebels to take part in discussions that would lead to peace, saying that that the 26-year conflict was the reason for the displacement of people. “People are on the move because of war. They are being moved by the government, or moving because of looting by UNITA, or because of food insecurity.”

The Oxfam director also called on the international community - mentioning donor countries and the United Nations - to lend their weight to peace efforts. She also said Oxfam would start to lobby the multinational petroleum companies, whose revenues comprise the Angolan government’s main source of income.

Stocking singled out the situation in the central Angolan town of Camacupa, which over the past two months has received thousands of people from Cuemba, some 60 km away. Some had fled to Cuemba to escape attacks and looting, only to be ordered on to Camacupa by the authorities. Others were forced to leave since humanitarian agencies are not allowed to work in Cuemba, and the government was providing neither food nor health care.

Earlier this month, the medical relief organisation Médecins sans Frontières said the government and the rebels were equally guilty of neglecting the serious and often acute humanitarian needs of Angolans in areas affected by the civil war.