Lives at risk as UN suspends food delivery

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) was expected to meet Angolan government officials on Tuesday to discuss recent attacks on its cargo delivery planes. The meeting comes five days after the UN suspended all food delivery flights in the southern African country on Friday. WFP spokesperson Cristina Müller told IRIN on Monday that all cargo and passenger flights - except in Lobito and Lubango in the provinces of Benguela and Huila - had been grounded. She said the WFP would also meet other UN humanitarian agencies on Tuesday to discuss how to deal with the crisis. Peter Rodrigues, WFP base manager in Kuito, capital of the central highlands Bie Province, told IRIN the food agency had about 680 mts of food in the run-down city, where it feeds between 160,000 and 200,000 people each day. While he would not speculate on how long the food would last without new deliveries, it was anticipated on Friday that WFP stores had food for five days. Announcing the suspension of its aid flights on Friday, the food agency warned of an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” if it was unable to resume food deliveries this week. The WFP feeds more than 1.1 million of Angola’s approximately 12 million people and can access most needy communities by air only. AP reported that on Friday afternoon an anti-aircraft missile exploded close to two Hercules cargo planes which were each carrying 17 mts of food to Kuito. The planes abandoned their mission and returned to their base. UNITA earlier claimed responsibility for a missile which hit a WFP plane near Luena in eastern Angola on 8 June. No one was injured and the crew managed to land the plane safely. A South African analyst with UNITA links told IRIN that UNITA may have been trying to prevent government soldiers from flying into Bie when they attacked the WFP Hercules craft on Friday. It seemed clear, he said, that government forces were gathering in the central provinces, preparing for an offensive against UNITA.