"The situation is tragic and unheard of in the history of the city. People are eating domestic animals, roots and flowers," the Roman Catholic missionaries said in a statement carried by the private Catholic radio Ecclesia.

Some 300,000 people have flocked to the city, Angola's second largest some 600 km southeast of Luanda, to flee fighting in the region between government forces and rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita).