Angola: $258 Million for 2000 Humanitarian Aid

Angop on February 15, 2000

Angola's humanitarian aid this year will attract an estimated $258 million, as confirmed today in Luanda by outgoing UN World Food Program (WFP) Director, Francesco Stripolli. Mr. Stripolli, who also served as director of the humanitarian aid coordinating unit (UCAH), told a Luanda news conference that the humanitarian crisis in Angola become worse as the number of needy people grows on a daily basis.

WFP has enough food to continue assistance until July or August this year, he said adding that donors have given a positive answer to the $258 million fund application. He said the United Nations at first appealed in 1999 for $51 million, which had to be revised four to five months later after the humanitarian crisis became worse.

According to Stripolli, three million people are directly affected by the war in Angola of which two million receive aid from the WFP with 25 to 30,000 internally displaced persons concentrated in the country's capital, Luanda. The incoming UCAH Director, Zuraida Mesa, is expected in Luanda on Saturday after Italy's Stripolli returns home.