ANGOLA: MSF rushes relief to 18,000 in need

U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

ANGOLA: MSF rushes relief to 18,000 in need

JOHANNESBURG, 3 May (IRIN) - The international medical relief organisation
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has started an emergency feeding and medical
programme in Chipindo, in Angola's southern province of Huila, to aid 18,000
isolated people in severe need.

On Thursday a medical and logistical team left MSF's mission at Caala, in
Huambo Province, with two trucks full of fortified food and medical
emergency equipment. The aid is to be distributed immediately among children
under 10.

A therapeutic feeding centre and health centre will also be opened to treat
the most severely malnourished and ill – in particular the children, an MSF
statement said.

During an exploratory medical mission the MSF team discovered mortality
figures as high as 6.1 per 10,000 people a day for children under 5 and 4.5
deaths per 10,000 a day for the population in general. These figures are
well above the emergency threshold of 1 death for 10,000 a day.

"We have seen hardly any little children under five. Lots of them had
already died," the statement quoted Mercedes Tataï, MSF's medical emergency
coordinator as saying. "A whole hill has been covered with fresh graves
since September."

A rapid nutritional evaluation of children showed 57 percent global
malnutrition and 35 percent severely malnourished. The MSF team also came
across significant numbers of malnourished adults and adolescents. A dozen
children in immediate need of care have been taken to the MSF hospital in
Caala.

The 18,000 civilians were moved from their homes to Chipindo between
September and March by Angolan government forces, MSF said. "They have had
no access since to their farmland or to humanitarian and food aid. After
surviving three years of war, violence, looting and isolation, these people
are now in immediate danger of dying," the agency warned.

Chipindo is the fourth emergency situation that MSF has come across since it
was able to start exploring parts of the provinces of Huambo, Huila and Bie,
which were inaccessible until the ceasefire at the beginning of last month.
In the other provinces where MSF is working, the teams are seeing similar
phenomena.

"Without an immediate relief effort by the authorities and the international
humanitarian agencies, MSF fears that the disaster, which has already killed
thousands of people will claim tens of thousand more," the statement said.

[ENDS]

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