At a makeshift feeding center, desperate mothers clamor for food for their children VIDEO CNN's Bob Coen witnesses the misery and hunger in Malanje, Angola Windows Media 28K 80K  ALSO:

September 20, 1999
Web posted at: 6:14 a.m. EDT (1014 GMT)

MALANJE, ANGOLA (CNN) -- Angola's renewed civil war has hampered humanitarian aid to most areas of the vast southwest African country and put millions at risk of disease and hunger.

The last round of fighting in the area erupted at the height of the agricultural season, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the surrounding countryside for the relative safety of the city.

"Those who decided to stay and guard their crops were killed by armed men, and their bodies were just left in the fields," said Sister Maria Fernandes, of the Catholic Church.

At a makeshift feeding center, desperate mothers clamor for daily rations they hope will save their children from starvation. The puffy faces on the skeletal bodies of many bodies reveal signs of severe malnutrition.

Angola's civil war has left many children showing signs of malnutrition

An occasional tank and a few military trucks are the only traffic these days on the potholed streets of the city of Malanje, once a thriving agricultural hub.

Although Angola has been in a near-constant state of civil war since 1975, Sister Maria said conditions have steadily worsened this year.

The city has been repeatedly shelled since fighting between the government and UNITA rebels resumed in December, breaking a U.N.-brokered peace accord signed in 1994. The government is expecting another UNITA attack on Malanje in the coming weeks.

Countryside battles, road ambushes and rebel shelling prevented aid from reaching the city in May, June and July. Since then, the United Nations and aid agencies have managed to deliver some food supplies, but not nearly enough to feed to the 200,000 people dependent on daily aid.

A crumbling school gymnasium is the site of yet another feeding center in Malanje, where a mother and her three children wait patiently for their food ration. Seven-year-old Paulo has barely enough strength to stand.

Its a story being repeated all across Angola -- and with no end in sight to the civil war, all most can do is worry.

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