DATE=1/21/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=W-F-P / ANGOLA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-258293
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The United Nations World Food Program, W-F-P,
says it hopes to begin airlifting urgently needed food
supplies on Sunday to thousands of Angolan refugees.
Lisa Schlein in Geneva reports that the refugees fled
to Western Zambia to escape stepped up fighting
between government and UNITA rebel forces.
TEXT: The World Food Program says it will transfer a
plane from its operation in Southern Sudan to carry
out the emergency airlift. The agency says more than
seven-thousand Angolan refugees, mainly women and
children, are in urgent need of food.
It says the refugees, who have been walking for days
and even weeks, are arriving in appalling condition.
Some of them are sick and malnourished.
Christiane Berthiaume of the W-F-P says the agency
will carry out six to seven flights a day from the
Zambian city of Mongu to Kalabo, the remote area in
Western Zambia where the refugees have gone. She says
the refugees have settled along the Zambezi River in
an area that is difficult to reach.
/// BERTHIAUME ACT ///
So far, we've been able to use the roads and we
have brought food over there with four-wheel
trucks. But, now that the rainy season has
started, the roads are flooded. We cannot go
there anymore by road. And, the Zambezi River,
the level of the water is too low. We cannot
bring food by barge. That's something we'll be
able to do later on during the rainy season -
somewhere in February.
/// END ACT ///
But, for now, Ms. Berthiaume says the only way to get
food to the area is by plane. Each flight will carry
up to eight tons of food. Ms. Berthiaume says the
agency wants to deliver a total of three-hundred tons
of food. She says this quantity will be enough to
feed the current refugees and be available for tens of
thousands of other Angolan refugees who reportedly may
be on their way.
Ms. Berthiaume says after the plane has dropped off
its cargo of food, it will fly some of the refugees
back to Mongu.
/// BERTHIAUME ACT ///
What we would like is to see these refugees
settled in an area where it would be easier to
access and to bring them food. The refugees
should be moved and some of them will be.
Probably each flight on the return will be in a
position to carry 60 refugees.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Berthiaume says when the refugees arrive in Mongu,
they will be taken by truck to other refugee camps in
the district of Kaoma. (Signed)
NEB/LS/GE/ENE/JP
21-Jan-2000 11:30 AM EDT (21-Jan-2000 1630 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
