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The Musseques of Luanda, Angola
By José da Silva
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Child mortality in Luanda is 320 per one
thousand; compare this to Canada, where it is
five per one thousand.
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Luanda, the capital of Angola, was founded by the Portuguese in 1575. In the beginning, Luanda was principally a port serving Portuguese navigators in their commercial activities for West Africa. It was also a point of departure on the long road to India. At that time, the city was referred to as “La route des épices” (“The road of spices”). Luanda was also a factory centre for Portuguese enterprises. Located on the West coast on the Atlantic Ocean, today Luanda is the largest city of Angola and also the principal port of the country.
Since the peace accord was signed between UNITA (Independência Total de Angola) and MPLA (Popular de Libertacão de Angola) in April 2002, Angola has been in constant transformation and rebuilding. Thousands of Angolan refugees in neighbouring countries are returning home and villages are returning to normal, despite the presence of land mines.
A Big Challenge—The Cities of Angola
One of the biggest challenges for Angola is its cities, particularly the capital. Like the majority of countries in the Southern Hemisphere, Angola is very urban. Best estimates show that Luanda has a population of more than five million inhabitants, representing forty percent of the total population of a country of fourteen million people. If we add this to the population of other major Angolan cities (Lobito, Benguela, Huambo, Lubango or Namibe), we see that more than seventy percent of Angola lives in these cities.
José da Silva was born in Lisbon, Portugual, but grew up in Luanda, Angola. He fled the country in the 1970s during the Marxist revolution. Da Silva recently completed his doctorate in ministry at Bakke Graduate University and returns to Luanda each year to minister and teach at Bible schools. He is married to Johanne and they have two daughters. |
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