DATE=6/27/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-N-H-C-R / ANGOLA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263800
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The United Nations refugee agency, U-N-H-C-R,
says its emergency relief operation in northern Angola
has come to a virtual standstill because of worsening
security. Lisa Schlein reports from Geneva.
TEXT: A U-N-H-C-R emergency team was sent to northern
Angola a few weeks ago, after a U-N mission found
displaced people living in appalling and life-
threatening conditions in Angola's northwestern
provinces.
U-N-H-C-R spokesman Kris Janowski says conditions in
the region have never been good or easy for the aid
workers. But he says whatever freedom of movement
they had is gone, at least for now.
He says the emergency team was deployed in the main
town of Angola's northern Uige province on June 19th.
But he says the team has been confined within a two-
kilometer radius of Uige town, following attacks on
two nearby villages by UNITA rebels.
/// JANOWSKI ACT ///
Even though we have supplies in the warehouses
in Luanda, and we have people on the ground,
they can hardly stick their nose out of town
because of the security situation, and that of
course is very bad because we've got, in that
province alone, 150-thousand people uprooted by
the civil war.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Janowski says the refugee agency's warehouse in
(the Angolan capital) Luanda is filled with various
relief supplies. But he says the goods cannot be
transported by road because they risk being hijacked
and looted. He says air transport is the only
feasible means of getting aid items to the northern
provinces. But, he says, airlifts have been blocked
since Monday, because of the temporary closure of the
airport in Uige, for maintenance.
In April, a U-N team went to Angola's northern
provinces. It found families displaced by the civil
war eating worms and grass to survive. The U-N
estimates more than two-and-one-half-million people
have been made homeless by the fighting in Angola. It
says nearly two-million are in urgent need of
humanitarian aid. (Signed)
NEB/LS/JWH/WTW
27-Jun-2000 11:35 AM EDT (27-Jun-2000 1535 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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