Army discovers large UNITA arms dump

Angola's army has discovered a large cache of heavy weapons and munitions near the airport in Mavinga, a town in the southeastern province of Cuando-Cubango, about 800 km south of the capital Luanda, AFP reported, quoting a private radio report on Tuesday. A large number of portable rocket launchers, a ZU-23 anti-aircraft battery, B12 cannon munitions, and explosives were found in the cache, according to Luanda Commercial Antenna (LAC) radio.

The army said the weapons belonged to the rebel UNITA movement, who have controlled Mavinga for several years, LAC's local correspondent said. In 1998, UNITA lost its central and southern strongholds in the towns of Bailundo, Nhareya and Andulo, after a major army offensive.

Since then, UNITA has also lost most other towns that had been used to coordinate guerrilla attacks throughout the country, mainly on villages, trains, buses and trucks. The government and UNITA have battled almost continuously for 26 years. A full-scale war that resumed in 1998 has claimed at least 500,000 lives and displaced some four million people out of a total population of 12 million.