Minefields halt food aid

2003-01-03 11:31

Luanda - The discovery of landmines has halted food aid deliveries to an estimated 40 000 hungry people in Angola, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday.

The southern African country brought an end to nearly three decades of civil war last April, but large areas of the countryside remain scattered with mines from the conflict.

Millions of people were forced to flee their homes by the fighting.

WFP spokesperson Marcelo Spina said the discovery of minefields on several distribution routes over the past month had halted aid deliveries to around 40 000 people in three separate locations.

"We were assisting those three areas but we had to interrupt the distribution. There are many other areas that we cannot even access because of landmines. The total number of people who are suffering because of the presence of landmines is unknown," Spina told Reuters.

He said the locations affected were in the northern province of Malanje, Cuando Cubango in the southeast and the central province of Huambo.

"We are alerting the whole community - both locally and the international community - of the need for demining, which is very expensive," he said.

Spina said the WFP hoped to bring in a helicopter to assess the needs of people living in inaccessible areas.

He said the agency would identify key routes to be demined to allow deliveries, and was preparing for a possible airlift of food to the worst-hit areas.

"Mines have claimed a lot of lives in Angola over the past months from their direct explosions, but this number will be much higher if the humanitarian assistance doesn't reach people in time and they starve to death," he said.

Nobody is precisely sure how many landmines are buried in Angola's soil, but estimates reach into the millions.

- Reuters