/ 30 June 1999

DOZENS DIE DAILY IN BESIEGED NORTHERN ANGOLA

RESIDENTS of the besieged northern Angolan town of Malanje are dying at the rate of dozens each day, either from UNITA shelling or from hunger, a non-governmental organization said on Tuesday. Fifty people lost their lives on Monday and Tuesday, said Jorge Sasassa, coordinator of the Committee of Solidarity with Malanje (CSAM). At least five people starve to death each day, while hundreds are wounded in shelling by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Sasassa said. Civil war resumed in Angola in November last year with the breakdown of 1994 peace accords.