U.N. Stops Aid Flights in Angola

The United Nations has halted all aid flights in Angola after a ground-to-air missile narrowly missed two of its planes in the second attack on aid aircraft this month.

The U.N. World Food Program on Friday announced an indefinite suspension of flights in the war-devastated country and warned of an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” if it is unable to resume deliveries this week.

The program provides vital aid to about 1 million people in Angola, where a civil war between the government and the UNITA rebel group has driven nearly 4 million people from their homes.

Program officials said that on Friday, an antiaircraft missile exploded near two Hercules cargo planes that were ferrying food to Kuito, a rural city about 350 miles southeast of the capital, Luanda.

The missile caused no injuries or damage to the aircraft, which were each carrying 17 tons of food. The planes abandoned their mission and returned to their base.

Program officials said they did not know who fired the missile.

They added that Kuito, where more than 200,000 people are dependent on aid, had food reserves for only six days.

The world body blames UNITA--a Portuguese acronym for the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola--for the 1998 collapse of a U.N.-brokered peace accord signed four years earlier. The war erupted after the country’s 1975 independence from Portugal.