Luanda (Fides Service) - When Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe visited the Bailundo and Kuemba camp for displaced persons in Angola on October 29, he was presented with a pressing appeal read out by one of the camp's young inmates. Here is the text:
"It is with great joy that we welcome you. For the first time we have the honour of your visit. We are poor, in need of many things and struck by many calamities: hunger, disease, premature death, etc. Diseases are many and serious, hunger is unspeakable, shelter is precarious, tents are full of holes. Because of hunger, children and old people alike beg in the streets.
Because of all this we ask you to help us to return to our land, to our homes. We ask you to send us tools, seeds and food…
We are all very happy that you have come to visit us and we hope to see you again.
Signed by the coordinators of the camp. 29 October 2002. (Fides Service 7/11/2002)