HEADQUARTERS PRESS BRIEFING ON ANGOLA

Press Briefing

HEADQUARTERS PRESS BRIEFING ON ANGOLA

At the moment, the main threat to relief workers and civilians in Angola was landmines, Agnes Asekenye-Oonyu, Chief of the Africa Section, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Discussing her recent trip to Angola, she said that new mines were still being laid in the country and very little was being done to address that situation. As expressed by the humanitarian community there, despite the reported success of the Government at the battlefronts, Angola remained a country at war with major military operations going on.

In a country of an estimated 12 million people, 10.2 million lived in poverty, 3.7 million were war-affected and 1.7 million were internally displaced, she continued. So far, relief workers had been able to reach about one million. During her trip she had visited Huambo, Malanje, and Bengo provinces, and was extremely disturbed by the numbers of severely malnourished children and adults she came across.

There had been some improvement with regard to the security situation in the provincial headquarters as a result of security mechanisms put in place by the Government in order to liaise with the civilian population and relief workers. There had been reported improvements in all the three provinces she visited. As access remained a major problem, she welcomed the move by the Government to assign 15,000 troops to keep the main roads in the country open so that the civilians and relief workers could move about safely.

Among fears the relief workers faced was whether they would land alive or return alive to the bases following a flight to deliver assistance. She had experienced firsthand how the planes spiralled while taking off as well as while landing, which was in fact an evasive manoeuvre to avoid being shot down, as some humanitarian flights had been in the past.

Regarding the humanitarian situation, she said that by the middle of 2000, there would be more people in need of assistance than at the end of 1999, irrespective of what the political or security situation was going to be. It was expected that the humanitarian community would need to continue to provide food, logistics, health services, clean water, sanitation, agricultural inputs and education for a significant portion of the war-affected population. Access to civilians and to services would require greater attention.

The Angolan Government had authorized $21.5 million for humanitarian assistance, she continued. For the period from January to June 2000, it would allocate an additional $34 million and from July to

Angola Briefing - 2 - 16 November 1999

August, a further $20 million. It was for the humanitarian community to oversee the disbursement of the $21.5 million. Among the issues discussed during her meetings with Government officials was the transparency and accountability of that disbursement.

Last year, $110 million had been requested for humanitarian assistance, she added. While there had been a good response to that appeal, the majority of the funds had gone to food, with only 34 per cent of the funds being used to address health needs. For next year, she was requesting $250 million, of which $210 million would be allocated to food assistance, which was the top priority. She would request donors to provide balanced funding for the other sectors as well.

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