In the aftermath of the civil war in Angola, a mother of an Angolan citizen wails as she stares at the body of her child, murdered in 2002. In the months before and after the 2002 ceasefire, which ended nearly 27 years of civil war, the death rate for families remained high, with excess mortality, especially among children. Malnutrition, fever or malaria, and war or violence were the main causes of death over the entire period; violence, the main killer in 2001, replaced malnutrition in 2002. This reflected years of isolation and armed conflict, and inadequate humanitarian response in the face of a dire food crisis.
After the collapse of Portuguese colonial rule in January 1975, Angola collapsed in a long civil war. Landmines and other remnants of war still killed and injured civilians, preventing them from rebuilding after the conflict ended. The cessation of the conflict between the UNITA rebels and the MPLA government on April 4, 2002, after the killing of UNITA's Jonas Savimbi in an Angolan military ambush, ended nearly 27 years of civil war in Angola. The conflict had wasted Angola's natural resource-rich land and caused a serious humanitarian disaster.
Three revolutionary movement forces, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola (FMLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which merged in 1962 with the Uganda People's Army (UPA), signed the Alvor Accord with the Portuguese government. The agreement recognized Angola's independence and established a power-sharing government between the three groups. However, cooperation and trust between the three groups was never established, and Angola fell into a civil war that lasted for almost 27 years.
Initially, the Angolan civil war morphed into a proxy war between the Cold War rivals, with various countries intervening on the warring sides to take advantage of Angola's natural resources. With the support of the Soviets and Cuba, the MPLA won the initial phase of conventional fighting in 1975-1976. It ousted the FNLA from Luanda and became the de facto government of Angola; the FNLA collapsed, but UNITA, supported by the United States and South Africa, took control of the diamond trade in the hinterland and continued its guerrilla warfare against the MPLA government from bases in eastern and southern Uganda. International interest and involvement in the conflict waned toward the end of the Cold War. the insurgency continued against the MPLA government, which ruled by increasing oil production, until UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in February 2002. UNITA signed a ceasefire with the MPLA government on April 4, 2002.
From the escalation of fighting in the 1980s until 2002, Angola was in the midst of a major civil war. Violence ranged from intensive civilian massacres; until the late 1990s, about 1.5 million to 3.6 million people were killed by the conflict, and about 500,000 people became refugees. Many casualties still continue to be caused by landmines and other weapons. Abuses and massacres of civilians, especially from 1998 to 2002, have increased significantly. The devastation of Angola's health care, food, livelihoods, infrastructure, and housing caused by more than about 27 years of conflict has resulted in more civilian deaths than direct killings.
