Angola Refugees
The Angolan civil war left one and a half million dead with an estimated four million more displaced over its twenty seven year duration. An entire generation grew up knowing nothing but conflict as the three rival factions raged against each other littering the countryside with landmines and massacring those who would not support them.
Many fled into neighbouring countries such as Zambia where
over the years they settled in camps such as the Mayukwayukwa
Refugee Settlement in Zambia's western province where they were
allowed to work plots of land as subsistence farmers from where few seem interested in returning
home.
In fact a survey by the UNHCR in 2009 found that out of 10,000 Angola refugees there only 251 were interested in returning to Angola. Many reasons were cited from feeling part of Zambia, having married Zambians or simply that they had had children there who saw themselves as Zambians and didn't want their education disrupted.
Some 25,300 Angola refugees still live in Zambia many years after the end of the conflict (at its height 500,000 had fled abroad) despite efforts by Zambia's government to urge them to return home, understandable given Zambia's own levels of poverty and the fact that Zambia is also providing shelter to refugees from the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Uganda. This video documentary tells the story of one girl who fled as a refugee to Zambia not knowing of the family she left behind.


TAGS: Angola Refugees, Refugees from Angola, Angola Refugees Video, Angola Refugees Documentary, Angola Refugees Camps, Angola Refugees in Zambia