Number of Angolans needing food aid in 2003 double previous estimates, UN says

Up to 2.4 million Angolans will need immediate food aid prior to the next harvest in April and May 2003, nearly double the number previously estimated, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today.

The UN agency warned that its efforts to provide urgent food aid to skyrocketing numbers of people in Angola will be “seriously crippled” unless donations are received immediately from the international community.

Francisco Roque Castro, WFP Country Director in Angola, is scheduled to meet today with representatives of the main donor countries in Luanda to brief them on the agency’s activities in 2002. He will also present WFP’s prognosis for 2003 and call for urgent support, particularly for the Central Highlands region, where more than half of the country’s vulnerable population is concentrated. “We believe that a special integrated humanitarian effort to eradicate hunger and suffering is of key importance for this region,” he said.

Earlier this year, Angola recorded a drop in the percentage of people suffering from life-threatening shortfalls of food and medicine, but since the end of hostilities between the Government and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the influx of more than 700,000 internally displaced people, malnutrition levels have reportedly increased.