UN concerned at huge numbers being displaced

The UN humanitarian coordinator in Angola said on Thursday he was “extremely pessimistic” about the plight of huge numbers of people being displaced by increased fighting in recent weeks between government forces and UNITA rebels. In an interview with IRIN, Francesco Strippoli, the UN humanitarian coordinator and WFP representative, said that since April last year, over 600,000 people had been displaced and that their number was now bound to increase. “I am extremely pessimistic because the country continues to be affected by fighting and new displacements,” he said. “On the other hand, we are not only concerned about people who have been displaced, but by the situation of the general population at large in cities under siege.” The UN humanitarian community in Angola is concerned at the increasing vulnerability of people in towns and cities having to compete for increasingly limited resources with the tens of thousands of internally displaced people who turn up on their doorsteps in desperate need of food, medical help and shelter. This was why he said, there was concern “for the general population as whole”. Strippoli said he was worried that with more government resources going towards executing the war, less support would be provided for the social sector in Angola. With most roads in the country too dangerous to use because of the security situation, the cost of providing aid had increased dramatically because most emergency supplies have to be sent by air. There were also many areas of the country to which the humanitarian community had no access. However, he added, despite the costly humanitarian airlifts, “you can be sure that we will continue to use every means as it arises”. Over the past two weeks, despite heavy UNITA shelling of the city of Malanje, some 350 km east of the capital Luanda, four to five trucks of emergency aid were arriving daily by road. “Access to areas where there is heavy fighting is very difficult. M’banza Congo, the Zaire province capital in northern Angola, for example, is one area where we still have to wait for conditions to enable us to assess the situation,” Strippoli said. “Access to non-government controlled areas is being negotiated in New York and other forums. It is a situation we are following with the view that every Angolan has the right to aid,” he said. In government-controlled areas of Angola, he said he was “very proud” that humanitarian coordination with the authorities both at central government level and in the provinces was going well with “very good working cooperation”. Given the crisis in the country, and its return to war following the breakdown of the UN-brokered Lusaka Protocol peace accords, Strippoli said donor nations would be kept aware of the need for timely funding to ensure Angola’s serious humanitarian needs.