The ministry of Assistance and Social Welfare controls 885 elderly people living in 14 homes of the aged situated in nine of the country's 18 provinces, ANGOP learnt this Monday from a source of the institution.

Data from the national social welfare department reveals that from this number, 499 are women and 386 men, distributed throughout the provinces of Benguela, Bié, Huambo, Huíla, Kwanza Sul, Kuando Kubango, Luanda, Moxico and Namibe.

It adds that apart from people accommodated in the centres, the department controls 240,879 elderly people, against the 233,228 registered during the first quarter of this year, through the mobile community registration system.

With this statistics updating, Luanda is ahead of the rest of the provinces with 29,503 elderly people within the communities and 120 others at the home of the aged situated in Terra Nova ward, the only in the province.

Benguela follows with 28,470 elderly people living in the communities and 106 at the Cavaco and Girassol homes of the aged.

Centres under the responsibility of the aforementioned ministry accommodate needy elderly people with survival difficulties, mainly those who have been abandoned by their families.