Angola ‘made thousands homeless’
According to Amnesty, homes have been demolished
repeatedly in one district since September 2004 to make room for new
public and private housing.
It says none of the affected residents has received compensation.
Neither have they been offered adequate alternative accommodation, the human rights group says.
‘Extreme violence’
Amnesty International’s report claims that nearly all
the forced evictions involved excessive use of force by the Angolan
authorities.
 | AFRICAN EVICTIONS 3m+ evicted since 2000 At least 6,000 Angolan families evicted since 2001 Source: Amnesty International  |
It also says that many forced evictions in the last two years have been
carried out apparently at the request of the Catholic church.
This is because 2,000 families had been living on land where the church intends to build a sanctuary.
Last month the aid agency Christian Aid reported that
over the last two years the Angolan government and private security
companies had been using extreme violence against squatters during slum
clearance operations in Luanda.
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Making way for Angola’s middle class
Luanda is home to five million people, about a
quarter of the country’s entire population, with most living in
“musseques” or slums.
One of those used to be Lucas Kaxingadoes, who has lived
in Bairro Cambamba on the southern outskirts of Luanda for several
years and where some families occupied the land 30 years ago.
His family began by farming the land and built houses with whatever materials they could find.
But they also took manual jobs in the city, saving what they could and eventually building houses made of concrete.
Lucas, however, doesn’t have a house any longer.
His home, like many others, was cleared to make way for new property to house the country’s burgeoning middle class.
 Billboards advertise the controversial new homes being built |
Lucas says policemen came and destroyed his home and
those of his neighbours in an effort to clear the land to make way for
new developments.
Maria Francisco, who has also been left without shelter,
tells a similar tale about the police: “During December they came
several times. They were aggressive.”
There are plans to use the land where Lucas and Maria live to build the next phase of a project called Luanda Sul.
Already thousands of homes have been built as part of this initiative on land surrounding Bairro Cambamba.
They are very expensive looking. They’re surrounded by
high walls and fences, they all have car ports, there are big satellite
dishes on many of them and the roads are all paved.
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