SOME 25 000 Unita rebels in Angola have turned themselves in to
demobilisation camps since the movement signed a ceasefire with the army on
April 4 to end 27 years of civil war, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said
on Friday.
In total, it is hoped some 55 000 fighters from the rebel National Union for
the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) will turn themselves into camps
around the country to be disarmed.
Only 5 000 will be integrated into the national army. The remaining 50 000
will have to be demobilised.
The April 4 ceasefire followed the death in an army ambush of Unita leader
Jonas Savimbi.
Savimbi led Unita in a brutal 27-year civil war against the government that
followed 14 years of war for independence against former colonial power
Portugal.
The civil war has killed at least half a million people, displaced
4,1-million or roughly one third of the population and devastated the
economy of the diamond- and oil-rich southern African nation. – Sapa