Thousands more displaced

An estimated 11,000 people have fled towards the besieged government-held city of Malanje 380 km east of the Angolan capital Luanda in recent days despite a resumption of shelling by the UNITA rebel movement. According to the latest weekly report of the UN Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Unit (UCAH), local NGOs in the area said the internally displaced people had been fleeing fighting around Cangandala, some 50 km south of Malanje. Inside the city itself, the report said the main market was operating at 50 percent capacity, and that although some basic products were still available, prices had increased considerably in recent weeks. It said WFP and its partners in Malanje had encountered difficulty distributing food because of the security situation. Nevertheless, it had managed to provide food supplies to over 15,000 displaced people between 28 January and 1 February. “A nutritional survey carried out by MSF-Holland in three neighbourhoods of Malanje among 543 children revealed preoccupying levels of malnutrition,” the report said. “It is feared that malnutrition might increase as the overall situation in terms of security and food availability continues to deteroriate.” In the central highlands city of Kuito, some 550 km southeast of Luanda, UCAH said WFP had managed to distributed food to more than 60,000 people last month following heavy UNITA shelling in December. With CARE as its implementing partner, the report said 1,200 mt of food would be distributed among 93,000 people, 70 percent of them internally displaced persons camped in the city. Humanitarian workers in Kuito were also concerned at the growing number of people contracting tuberculosis. Reports from the Instituto Portugues de Medicina Preventiva, said 172 new cases had been diagnosed in the past month, and that “in view of the extremely poor sanitary conditions in the city, it is feared that the number of cases might increase rapidly”. UCAH said the Zaire Province capital of M’banza Congo, captured 10 days ago, was still under UNITA control. Military action in the area had also forced people to flee their homes. According to the latest count, some 500 people had arrived in Noqui on the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). An undetermined number of people had also crossed in to DRC.