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Reuters
Natural
disasters are further eroding living conditions for many
Angolans whose lives have already been ruined by a decades-old
civil war in the south-west African country, media reported
on Thursday.
Heavy
rains have caused flooding in the southern provinces of
Benguela and Namibe, destroying homes and strangling supply
routes from the coast, while a drought rages in the southern
interior province of Cunene.
Floods
have caused at least 20,000 people to lose their homes in
floods in the southern province of Namibe and 3,000 more
in Benguela, the head of the national welfare agency MINARS
told the state newspaper on Thursday.
"The
people are totally without clothes, without blankets, without
means for surviving," Albino Mulongo told Jornal de
Angola. He appealed for international aid.
Mulongo
said drought was also affecting families in Cunene.
The
overflowing Bero River submerged two suburbs of Namibe town,
the provincial capital, but water levels had started to
recede by Wednesday.
The
provincial government would give affected Namibe residents
new land to build houses, church-run radio reported on Thursday.
Residents
were wading across swollen rivers to trek 10 km (six miles)
to buy petrol and cooking gas from the state oil company
Sonangol, Radio Ecclesia said.
"Washed
out bridges in Namibe will mean fuel scarcity in our province,"
Francisco Ramos da Cruz, the governor of neighbouring Huila,
told Jornal de Angola on Thursday. He said fuel trucks were
already risking unsafe roads and bridges.
Angola
has been torn by a 26-year civil war between Luanda and
the rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.
The conflict has killed about a million people and decimated
the country's infrastructure.
Government
and aid agency figures for the total number of people displaced
by the war range from 2.5 million to 3.8 million. The government
said 63,000 newly displaced people were registered between
January and March.
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