Cabinda villages 'decimated'

2004-03-18 14:24

Luanda - Entire villages are being emptied due to repression by the Angolan army in the northern Cabinda region, home to a separatist movement, the province's bishop Monsignor Paulino Madeca said on Thursday.

"Entire villages are in the process of being decimated because locals are fleeing as they fear dying," he told AFP.

Madeca categorically denied claims by the Angolan security forces that the "situation is under control.

"Whoever knows the villages as well as I do, knows that it's not true, the people are not satisfied, they are not free," adding: "the situation is under the domination of the military, not under its control."

The bishop said he was not hopeful about the future of oil-rich Cabinda, wedged between the Congo Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying "maybe there will be a bloodbath one day."

He also alleged that Angolan authorities were bugging his phone.

Angola emerged from 27 years of civil war in April 2002 and has since become Africa's third-largest oil producer, with US firms active in the Cabinda enclave, where the separatists have been challenging Luanda's authority for 40 years.

- AFP