Landmine blast in Angola kills 22 civilians

Lisbon, Portugal - Twenty-two civilians were killed and 17 injured when their vehicle ran over an anti-tank mine which exploded near Catala in Angola's northern Malanje province, a source at Malanje city hospital said on Friday.

The victims were travelling from Catala, 40 kilometres north of Malanje, to Caculama when the accident occurred, the source told Portugal's LUSA news agency.

Government troops had recently recaptured the area from rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita).

LUSA quoted an unidentified official with a non-governmental organisation that it was the 24th such incident in Malanje province since the start of the year.

Tracts of the southern African country have been strewn with mines in more than 25 years of almost non-stop civil war between government troops and Unita rebels since independence in 1975. - Sapa-AFP