EU humanitarian aid to Angola

The European Commission has adopted a decision to provide continuing humanitarian support for the resettlement of populations affected by the war in Angola. €5 million will be channelled by the Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), a service of the European Commission under the responsibility of Poul Nielson, through partner organisations and international agencies operating in the country, and in neighbouring countries hosting Angolan refugees.

This decision will support humanitarian programmes in the fields of health, nutrition, water/sanitation, emergency relief items and clothing, protection and legal support, agricultural inputs, logistical support to returnees, mine awareness and demarcation, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, and care and maintenance of refugees. The key objectives are aimed at establishing the minimum conditions for resettlement in Angola, for which € 4 million are earmarked, and supporting the care and maintenance of refugees and their host communities in neighbouring countries to the tune of €800.000. A reserve of €200,000 will be allocated to one or other of these objectives at a later stage.

The April 2002 ceasefire, after 27 years of civil war, laid the building blocks for lasting peace in Angola, and triggered movements, on an unprecedented scale, of the most vulnerable population groups, internally displaced people (IDPs) and spontaneously returning refugees. It is estimated that 70% of the up to 1.9 million people who have returned to Angola so far have done so without any assistance, and to areas where the minimum conditions for resettlement are not in place. Many thousands more of the remaining 1,900,000 IDPs are expected to be on the move again with the end of the rainy season, whilst the first organised repatriations of some of the 440,000 refugees still remaining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, the Republic of Congo and Zambia are due to begin in June 2003. Those refugees who do not repatriate in 2003, as well as their host communities, will continue to require assistance.

These mass returns are taking place in overwhelming numbers, and against a background of limited absorption capacity, an absence of food security and health services, the presence of landmines and other unexploded ordnance, and badly damaged or destroyed road and bridge infrastructure. There is also a serious risk of HIV/AIDS transmission, as people coming from countries with high rates of infection return to areas where HIV/AIDS awareness is almost totally non-existent. In view of the fact that returning IDPs, refugees, and resident populations in the resettlement areas are equally vulnerable, it is necessary to avoid discrimination in the treatment of the different groups.

| Arriba |

• EU Presidency Declaration on elections in Angola (4/8/2004)