U.S. Committee for Refugees Mid-Year Country Report 2001 - Angola

Background

Angola's civil war has raged for decades despite peace accords and power-sharing agreements. Hundreds of thousands of Angolans have died of war-related causes. A government military offensive in 2000 reclaimed sizable territory from UNITA rebels. International sanctions appeared to leave the rebels weakened but not defeated. The country's rich natural resources, including oil and diamonds, helped sustain the conflict.

At the beginning of 2001, some 400,000 Angolans were refugees in neighboring countries, and approximately 2 million or more were internally displaced. About one-sixth of all uprooted people in Africa were Angolans.

Recent Political/Military/Human Rights Developments

The war continued in southern, central, and northern regions during the first half of 2001. UNITA rebels launched new attacks, particularly in northern areas. Angolan government troops pressed their advantage in some regions, and government troops from neighboring Namibia launched cross-border attacks into southern Angola against UNITA forces.

In one of the bloodiest incidents, a UNITA rebel attack killed up to 200 displaced civilians and temporarily kidnapped 60 children in the northern town of Caxito in May. "Civilians, in particular villagers and farmers, are often victims of serious and recurring human rights abuses," a UN report stated in April.

Reports differed regarding the effectiveness of the government's amnesty offer to rebel fighters. The government offered amnesty to rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in return for the surrender of his army, but Savimbi ignored the offer. Despite the continued warfare, both sides expressed general support for the so-called Lusaka peace accords signed years earlier. UNITA leaders urged changes in the peace accord, however.

New Uprooted Populations

Some 270,000 Angolans became newly displaced during the first half of 2001, primarily in central and northern provinces, according to estimates by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The UN estimated in April that years of war have left a cumulative total of 2.8 million persons displaced within Angola, but only about 1.1 million of them had been verified by international aid organizations. About one-quarter of the country's displaced population lived in areas that were inaccessible because of rebel control or other dangers, the UN estimated.

Nearly 10,000 new Angolan refugees fled to neighboring Zambia during the first half of the year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They fled from violence caused by an Angolan government military offensive in eastern Angola.

In late July, UNHCR made plans to repatriate 800 Angolan refugees from Congo-Brazzaville to northern Angola's isolated Cabinda Province, which UNHCR described as "the only safe area in Angola."

Humanitarian Conditions

The numbers of displaced people did not seem to diminish during the first half of 2001 even though a government "resettlement" program has helped transfer 330,000 displaced Angolans to new property at more than 100 locations. Government officials and aid workers continued efforts to improve identification and registration of displaced families in order to target aid more effectively.

As UNITA rebels retreated, international aid workers gradually gained access to areas that were previously cut off from assistance, where they discovered populations with serious health problems, including malnutrition. Newly displaced families in central Bie Province arrived at displacement sites "in a state of extreme vulnerability, with many already suffering from advanced malnutrition," the UN World Food Program (WFP) reported in June. Some 66 displaced persons reportedly died of malnutrition in Bie Province. Mortality rates among displaced persons in other locations remained higher than normal. Angola's infant death rate remained the second highest in the world. WFP attempted to distribute food aid to nearly 1 million people scattered among 17 provinces.

Critics continued to charge the government and rebels with callousness toward the civilian population's misery. Both sides were "turning a blind eye to the obvious, serious, and often acute humanitarian needs of the Angolan people," Medecins Sans Frontieres stated in July. "There is still a gap between Angola's substantial revenues and the funds allocated to improving the living conditions of the population," a report by the UN secretary general observed in April.

Humanitarian relief efforts were targets for attack in mid-year. A UNITA rebel attack in the north temporarily took 11 aid workers hostage in May. WFP temporarily suspended relief flights in central Bie Province and eastern Moxico Province after three relief planes were fired upon in June. The flight suspension impeded food deliveries to at least 200,000 displaced persons, including 40,000 malnourished children, WFP reported. About 60 percent of all relief aid reached interior destinations by air because of impediments on the ground posed by vast distances, poor roads, and insecurity caused by the war.