Churches Confront Post-war Angola's Humanitarian Crisis

By Paul Jeffrey

An internally displaced Angolan family returns home after the war. After a quarter century of war, their country is at peace. An immense humanitarian crisis has emerged in the wake of the armed conflict. The United Methodist Committee on Relief is responding to this emergency through its United Methodist and ecumenical parters. Credit: Paul Jeffrey/ACT 2002.

After a quarter century of war, Angola is at peace. Yet an immense humanitarian crisis has emerged in the wake of the armed conflict, leaving international aid organizations struggling to meet the urgent needs of the war's many victims. Among those seeking to help are members of Action by Churches Together, the international alliance of churches and church agencies responding to disasters. The United Methodist Committee on Relief is a major ACT member.

Four million people – almost a third of Angola's population – have been displaced by the conflict, according to aid officials. More than 400,000 of the displaced are living in camps. The most recent arrivals, who fled fierce fighting during the final months of the war, are in desperate condition, aid agencies report. Cut off from the rest of the country as long as the fighting continued, their emergence has shocked even aid workers accustomed to Angola's brutal poverty. "Many of these people are barely alive," said Lisa Grande, Angola director of the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The United Nations considers Angola the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, with as many as 3 million people receiving emergency assistance. In addition to those displaced internally, some 470,000 Angolan refugees live outside the country, mostly in Zambia, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The rainy season begins in September, yet only a few of the displaced are expected to try returning home in time to plant their fields for the next year. Most of the former soldiers and the displaced families, especially the recent arrivals, are too weak to travel, having survived for years in the bush, feeding only on roots, herbs and wild animals. Many of the displaced had their fields and houses burned to force them to leave. Some will come home to fields that are now occupied by others. Millions of land mines, no one knows exactly how many, are seeded along paths and roads and around wells.

A malnourished girl in Kamasinque, Angola, stands in the charred ruins of what had been her family's home until UNITA forces burned it in 1999, forcing the family to flee. They returned home in July, facing huge obstacles in resuming their life as subsistence farmers. UMCOR, in partnership with Action by Churches Together, is helping families like them with seeds, agricultural tools and other assistance. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT.

International assistance for the victims of the civil war has been slow to materialize in the wake of the April cease-fire, with donor nations arguing that Angola's oil-rich and corruption-plagued government should pay more of the bill for caring for and relocating people. Angola's leaders claim they mortgaged future oil receipts to pay for the war and argue that world superpowers, who used their country as a battleground during the Cold War, have a moral responsibility to help repair the damage.

Members of the ACT alliance believe the victims of the lengthy conflict shouldn't have to wait any longer to receive assistance. They have been working to assist Angolans struggling to make peace meaningful. The Lutheran World Federation has been designated the lead ACT agency in Angola. In the eastern provinces of Moxico and Lunda Sul, where the war's end game was fought, ACT is working in five demobilization camps, assisting the families of 3,000 former UNITA combatants.

In 15 camps for the displaced, ACT is providing food and other assistance to 15,000 families. The U.N.'s Grande considers the organization's work in the camps to be a model. "ACT runs the best displaced camps I've seen anywhere in the world," she said.

ACT works closely with the Mines Advisory Group, which is clearing land mines and unexploded ordnance from key roads and paths in the region. As soon as routes into rural communities are safe to travel, Luena-based ACT staff members are carrying out assessments of what's needed to save the lives of victims and make return home possible.

Neighbors carry the body of a young Angolan woman for burial near the town of Luena, Angola. The woman, who was living in a camp for internally displaced persons, died of nutrition-related respiratory problems. As many as 4 million Angolans are internally displaced. With the war's end, many want to go home, but face serious obstacles to restarting their lives in peace. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT

Once conditions are relatively safe, ACT will provide a variety of assistance to returning families, including seeds and tools for planting, plastic sheeting for housing, wells and pumps for drinking water, rehabilitation of schools and clinics, and additional training for community health promoters.

Rebuilding war-torn Angola involves more than just providing material assistance, however, and ACT is carrying out a variety of activities to help ensure a lasting peace. Child protection workers are being trained to protect the welfare of orphaned and traumatized children. Soccer balls and organized games are providing laughter where it has long been absent.

ACT is making it possible for local pastors and church leaders in the war-torn eastern provinces to be trained by the United Nations as human rights counselors, and seminars on peace and reconciliation are planned in cooperation with local church leaders and traditional village authorities. ACT is also supporting the work of the Interchurch Committee for Peace in Angola, an ecumenical group seeking to provide Angola's churches with participation in the national debate about the country's post-war future.

"It's much easier to distribute food and blankets, but this work of building peace and reconciliation is extremely important," said Carl von Seth, the Lutheran World Federation/ACT representative in Angola. "One of the reasons that past cease-fires didn't succeed was that no one was speaking up about human rights violations."

July 23, 2002

How to Help

The United Methodist Committee on Relief is responding to the emergency in Angola through its United Methodist and ecumenical parters. To support these efforts, give to "Angola War Recovery," Advance #105720. The generous giving of United Methodists to the One Great Hour of Sharing supplements the cost of Advance gifts. Give through a local United Methodist church or send financial contributions to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Call 1-800-554-8583 to make a credit card donation.