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Photo: IRIN

Displaced children: War is over but Angolans are anxiously watching the implementation of the demobilisation process

LUANDA, 22 May 2002 (IRIN) - Aid agencies in Angola are extending relief operations into quartering camps where UNITA soldiers' families have gathered, and areas of the country that have now become accessible as a result of a 4 April ceasefire between government and UNITA forces. Relief workers who have been operating in the quartering camps’ family areas since the ceasefire, as well as the Joint Military Commission (JMC) which is overseeing the demobilisation process, have described the humanitarian situation there in recent weeks as critical. Official JMC statistics show that more than 65,300 soldiers had already registered at the 35 cantonment locations by Monday, accompanied by almost 164,000 of their relatives who are being quartered separately. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said recently it believed that an estimated 500,000 people from areas which were inaccessible during the war would need urgent assistance in the near future. OCHA rapid assessments in 26 such areas in 12 of Angola's 18 provinces indicate that thousands of people need help immediately. "Critical levels of malnutrition" existed in at least seven of the areas, OCHA found, and people from all 26 locations were in urgent need of basic health care, sanitation, potable water, essential non-food items, education and proof of identity. "On the basis of the assessments, sectoral groups are drafting an analysis of each sector and a corresponding plan of action that includes activities and cost requirements. Sectoral focal points are working in full consultation with all relevant partners, including government representatives, UN agencies and international and national NGOs," OCHA said in a report released on Tuesday. In the same report, OCHA said the aim of the UN's humanitarian strategy was "to continue providing assistance in areas where programmes are already underway and to initiate life-saving operations for vulnerable populations in newly accessible locations, as well as in family areas established under the 4 April Memorandum of Understanding [between government and UNITA troops]" which ended Africa's longest-running civil war. "Operations will be extended in a pragmatic manner within current logistical and funding constraints ... These operations [in family quartering areas] are extensions of ongoing provincial programmes and are complementary to government programmes," OCHA said. In addition, humanitarian partners were working in close collaboration with government authorities to accelerate the resettlement and return of those displaced by the war to their homes or to safe areas. It was reported in a JMC confidential report about two weeks ago that the number of weapons being handed over at the cantonment areas was a cause for concern. However, UNITA members in the commission attributed the low number of registered weapons, to the fact that many of their soldiers were being transported to the cantonment areas by the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and were unable to take more than just their rifles with them. One UN security expert, however, said that it seemed as though UNITA was holding back - waiting first to see whether the process was handled properly. But most observers and commentators in Angola agree that UNITA does not have the capacity to restart the war, even if they do hang onto some of their weapons. "They do not have access to money or other resources to go back to war," one diplomatic source said. "UNITA soldiers are in no condition to continue fighting a bush war," said another. Their comments seem to be corroborated by fieldworker reports, which indicate high levels of malnutrition among soldiers. In fact the JMC report said that at least 86 people in the family quartering areas had died in the first half of May as a result of malnutrition, and that some soldiers were in a severely weakened state on arrival at the quartering sites. One elderly man who made his way to a quartering area in Sambo in the central province of Huambo, told IRIN last week that to his knowledge 20 soldiers had died at the site between 30 April (when he arrived) and 16 May. "The soldiers are happy the war is over. They don't want to fight anymore. But they do not feel they have lost the war. They just feel there was an agreement between UNITA and the government ... Really their conditions are very bad, and in the camps they have no blankets, soap and food," he said. The man, who did not want his name published, was trucked with other soldiers' families to a nutritional feeding centre run by the NGO CONCERN in central Huambo. He was at the centre with a young malnourished child who needed medical help desperately. Another woman who was taken to the nutritional centre from the same quartering site told IRIN that when she arrived at the site with her soldier husband there was nothing there. "Now they [the government] are distributing food for soldiers and their families. When we arrived at the quartering area there was nothing. We had to collect our own food. After this, food and some other things arrived, but there are very few goods," she explained. According to the woman, soldiers were each being given rations 1kg of rice, a small tin of fish, a small piece of dried fish and half-a-kilo of maize for 10 days. This ration was doubled for families situated in the nearby family area, she said. The government has since asked for international assistance to provide humanitarian aid in the family areas. But the soldiers themselves are not being helped directly yet, except with supplies from the government. The Angolan government and UNITA have so far described the quartering process as successful. However, there is growing concern that a lack of food, medicines and other assistance could lead to banditry – and to more deaths. The government is hoping to keep soldiers and their families at the quartering sites for a maximum of six months before trying to return as many people as possible to their homes, and to incorporate 5,000 UNITA soldiers into the FAA.