Unless it gets more funding, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will not meet its aim to provide food to thousands of Angolan refugees returning home this year, the organisation said on Thursday.
”The food component of the repatriation exercise is essential to ensure people prosper when they return,” said James Morris, executive director of the WFP.
”If they have nothing to eat and face barren fields plus rebuilding their homes, then they’re more likely to give up and migrate to cities or return to exile.”
Mike Huggins, a WFP spokesperson, said the aid organisation had planned to assist as many as 10 000 Angolans in Namibia, 40 000 in Zambia and 19 000 from the Democratic Republic of Congo to return home this year.
There they will join the 1.4-million people who have already been repatriated.
However, the WFP has received only $35-million of an appeal for $253-million for its resettling operation in Angola.
This means the agency will not be able to sustain its current levels of assistance, let alone supply a complete food package to the people returning home, said Huggins.
Huggins said the repatriation operation could not be delayed because seasonal rains make June to November the only feasible time for people to return.
The Angolan government has asked that any genetically modified food aid be milled before being distributed.
Earlier this week the WFP said this request will also cause delays in the provision of food aid to Angola.
”Milling would have to be done overseas and we would have to find someone to pay for it,” Huggins said.
There are an estimated 166 000 Angolans in neighbouring countries, some of whom have been living in refugee camps for decades. — Sapa