Women bear the brunt of war

The basis of the local economy in the besieged, government-held central highlands city of Kuito is a simple but vital commodity -firewood. It is collected almost exclusively by women who are forced to trek up to 40 km in a day, dodging UNITA rebels and minefields that ring this city crammed with some 70,000 internally displaced people (IDPs). It is currently the cold season in Angola, and up in the Panalto highlands country the temperature drops sharply at night. Firewood is the main source of heat both for warmth and cooking for IDP families sheltering in roofless makeshift grass huts, and for the citizens of Kuito living in bombed out buildings - the legacy of the bitter nine-month battle for the city in 1993. A small bundle of firewood costs the equivalent of around US 50 cents in the market. With WFP able to feed only the most vulnerable of those in Kuito that need food aid, the sale of firewood allows families to buy the maize meal and vegetable leaves on which most people in the city subsist. Apart from the limited amount of fresh produce grown from a narrow perimeter around Kuito, everything else in the market is flown in, raising its price. That impacts both on the displaced and Kuito residents who in theory should be better off. But while the malnutrition rate among IDPs has stabilised since the last survey in March, among the 250 children admitted each week to the city's special feeding centres, 40 percent are from local families. Elnusia Simela is 54-years-old. She fled to Kuito from Andulo, about 100 km to the north, when UNITA turned on supporters of the ruling MPLA after losing the 1992 elections. She supports eight people in her household, including her surviving grandchildren. "Life in Kuito is very expensive," she told IRIN. "There is a lot of suffering, especially for women." Simela feeds her family by collecting firewood. "You leave early in the morning and come back at night. Many times you come back too late to sell and have to sleep until the next day," she said. "There are a lot of mines and you have to learn how to identify the areas," she added. Maria Naneli, 52, is one of the unlucky ones. Last week, collecting firewood 30 km outside Kuito, she detonated a mine and lost her right foot. "It was my first time in the area," she told IRIN. "I stepped off the path and into the bush." Still trying to come to terms with her injury in a ward in Kuito hospital she said: "If I wasn't so hungry I would have stayed at home."