Angola
Disarmament of starving Angolan rebels

afrol News, 23 May  - While reports confirm that the disarmament of Angola's UNITA rebels is going faster than planned, the same fighters are now victims of a severe food shortage in the demobilisation camps. Today, the first consignment of foreign aid for the ex-rebels arrived Luanda, and will be distributed in the coming days. 

According to UNITA's military chief Abreu Kamorteiro, an estimated 69,000 ex-rebels are now living in the demobilisation camps where the disarmament is taking place. Additionally, nearly 200,000 people, mostly relatives of the fighters, have settled near the camps, Kamorteiro told AFP yesterday. He expected even more to come.

The large number of people arriving the camps - significantly exceeding the numbers originally expected - however has created a severe shortage of food. There are reports of up to five people dying of hunger-related diseases every day in the camps. An estimated 100,000 Angolans - including many UNITA fighters - are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to Médecins sans Frontières (MSF).

According to the ceasefire agreement, the Angolan government had promised to supply the 33 demobilisation camps with food and medicine. After disarmament and the inclusion of some UNITA soldiers and officers in the national armed forces, an estimated 350,000 people (UNITA rebels and their families) were to be resettled by the government. UNITA officials are however concerned their starving fighters might start escaping the camps and turn to robbery.

Foreign aid arrived today after Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last week had appealed to the UN for assistance. The arrival had been delayed by prolonged negotiations between the UN and the government. The government was unwilling to give the security guarantees that the UN wanted, so the UN turned on to non-governmental organisations for food distribution among UNITA ex-fighters. 

Food and medical aid at the camps "has improved in recent days", Kamorteiro said yesterday, according to a report in 'The Namibian'. "Logistical conditions have now improved. We cannot compare the current situation to that which prevailed a few days ago," he said.

The humanitarian disaster in Angola however does not only victimise the former UNITA fighters. An estimated four million people internally displaced by the long civil war are also facing severe food shortages. According to MSF, this crisis is the direct result of the strategies of war pursued by the government and the rebels as they moved civilians off their farms attempting to keep control over the population. 

The UN envoy for war-affected children, Olara Otunnu, after visiting Angola, called for immediate action to respond to Angola's grave humanitarian crisis. Otunnu noted that the vast majority of the internally displaced were children and that some 100,000 youngsters had been separated from their families. 

Otunnu issued an appeal "to the government of Angola and the international humanitarian community, in this urgent matter of saving lives, to join hands to mount a major and immediate mobilisation of food, medicine, water and shelter for the population emerging from the previously UNITA-controlled areas." He also called on the government and the international community to begin immediately rehabilitating education, health and nutrition services. 

Sources: Based on 'The Namibian' through Misanet, MSF, UN sources and afrol archives

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