UN refugee agency appeals for $8.4 million to aid Angola
20 July -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today issued an appeal for $8.4 million for its emergency assistance programme for 300,000 people forced from their homes by civil strife in Angola.
In a statement released in Geneva, UNHCR said it had sent an assessment mission to the Angolan provinces of Uige, Zaire and Luanda in March and has since deployed a 12-member emergency team to begin a full-scale relief programme for the displaced people there.
Widespread conflict has engulfed Angola since a peace agreement reached in Lusaka fell apart in mid-1998. By the end of 1999, some 3.7 million Angolans were reported to be in need of assistance, with around 1.5 million of them internally displaced in disease-ridden camps with little food. Conditions in the camps were described as some of the most appalling in the world, UNHCR said.
Following consultations among UN agencies, UNHCR will principally operate in the three provinces where refugees from the previous conflict had returned, the statement said. In the appeal, priority will be given to providing basic health and nutrition ($815,000), water and sanitation ($710,040), shelter ($411,875), essential household materials ($691,000), and transport and logistics ($1.6 million).
UNHCR's programme will gradually shift to more long-term activities, such as strengthening local capacity-building, education, training and some income-generating projects, the agency said.
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