Malanje shelled all week

The government-held city of Malanje this week sustained a daily barrage of heavy shelling by long-range artillery of the UNITA rebel movement claiming many lives and impeding humanitarian relief operations.

In its latest weekly report on the crisis in Angola, the UN Huamanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (UCAH), said it had not been possible to get accurate figures on the number of deaths and injuries because the situation made it difficult for those humanitarian relief staff still in the city, some 400 km east of the capital Luanda, to move around.

“What we are experiencing in Malanje is a nightmare situation,” UCAH spokesman Fernando Costa Freire told IRIN on Thursday. “The shelling has prevented people gathering at meeting points to receive what relief is available.”

According to the latest figures compiled by UCAH from government data, Malanje is now crammed with 104,850 internally displaced people who have fled fighting in the surrounding countryside - a figure higher than other of Angola’s other besieged provincial capitals. Malanje itself is the capital of Malanje Province.

However, NGOs distributing WFP relief food had managed to to provide about 45,000 of the displaced people with food assistance during lulls in the shelling. Since relief was first provided on 28 January, WFP added, 82,000 people had now received 1,119 mt of food resulting in a drop in food prices at the only market still open.