Between 1575 and 1975, Angolan territory was partially colonised as
Portuguese Angola. In the late 18th-century and early 19-century, escaped slaves joined with bandits to attack the Portuguese. There was also resistance from indigenous peoples such as the
Herero and the
Nyaneka. The latter squatted ancestral lands after being displaced from them.
Angola became independent in 1975, then the
Angolan Civil War began, lasting until 2002 and displacing an estimated 4 million people. In 1975, the capital
Luanda had 0.5 million inhabitants and by 2011 its population was 10 million of which 7 million lived in
slums scattered across the city. In these
squatted informal settlements known as musseques, 55 per cent have electricity and 12.4 per cent have running water. In 2007,
Amnesty International and
Christian Aid criticised the
government for forcibly evicting squatters and not resettling them. In one instance, the Catholic church had requested that 2,000 families be removed. As well as occupying land, people also squatted buildings left derelict after being damaged in the civil war.
Human Rights Watch recorded an eviction of at least 5,000 people in 2013 from a
shanty town in Maiombe, Luanda. == References ==