BMJ  2003;327 (20 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7416.0-e

Mortality among UNITA members remains high after the ceasefire

The death rates among displaced former members of UNITA and their families remain high in the aftermath of the civil war in Angola. In a retrospective study of mortality in the months before and after the 2002 ceasefire that ended 27 years of civil war, Grein and colleagues (p 650) found that death rates were excessive, particularly among children. Malnutrition, fever or malaria, and war or violence were the main causes of death over the entire period. The main killer in 2001, violence, was replaced by malnutrition in 2002. This reflects years of isolation and armed conflict, as well as an insufficient humanitarian response in the face of a dramatic food crisis.

Credit: J B RUSSELL/PANOS

Related Article

Mortality among displaced former UNITA members and their families in Angola: a retrospective cluster survey

Thomas Grein, Francesco Checchi, Josep M Escribà, Abiy Tamrat, Unni Karunakara, Christopher Stokes, Vincent Brown, and Dominique Legros
BMJ 2003 327: 650. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]