As
Angola and
Namibia are neighbours, there has historically been a great deal of cross-border movements between the two countries. There were formerly large numbers of immigrants from southeast Angola at
Mangarangandja and
Sarasungu, east of
Rundu along the
Okavango River; however, they were relocated to
Kaisosi and
Kehemu in the 1970s. These early migrants tend to identify themselves as "Nyemba". Many early migrants were of
Ovambo ethnicity, an ethnic group found on both sides of the border. In 1989, as
Namibia prepared to form a new independent government and Namibians in self-imposed exile in Angola returned to their homeland, hundreds of Angolans, including
Angolans of Portuguese descent, came along with them, fleeing renewed fighting in the
Angolan Civil War. The number of Angolan refugees had grown to 2,069 by 1996 and to 7,612 by 1999. At the peak in 2001, statistics of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed 30,881 Angolan refugees in the country. Between January and July 2004, 7,035 Angolans who had taken refuge in Namibia during the
Angolan Civil War had returned to Angola; the UNHCR aimed to repatriate a total of 14,000 that year. By 2005, the number of Angolan refugees remaining in the country had dropped sharply to 4,666 people. Between 1999 and 2003, the number of foreign citizens arriving from Angola at the
Oshikango border post nearly doubled from 143,992 to 267,504. The flow of Angolans into Namibia is much larger than the reverse flow of Namibians into Angola. Some young labour migrants also cross the border from Angola into Namibia for temporary or seasonal work, especially on Namibian farms. ==See also==