I edited this video for the United Nations General Assembly, attended by the Duke of Sussex and the President of Angola, João Lourenço. Footage shot by myself and other videographers.
Angola endured 27 years of civil war, finally ending in 2002. Landmines were laid across vast areas, killing and injuring thousands of people. An estimated 70,000 people lost their limbs. Today, nearly 25 years after the end of the war, almost 1000 minefields remain to be cleared.
Cuito, Bié Province
Children have turned an abandoned tank into a play item. Cuito was subject to years of fighting between FAPLA and UNITA troops including an 18 month siege. The city was completely decimated and littered with mines. Today, schools and government buildings have been rebuilt where there were once minefields.
Cazeta village, Menongue
In Cazeta village, near Menongue, Inés is raising her four-month-old son, Eduardo, just a few hundred metres from a minefield. The land is their source of survival – to grow maize, sugar cane, cassava and graze cattle. But the minefield is out of bounds – too dangerous to use.
Local boys Adão, Isaia and Daniel love football–their favourite team is Barcelona. The fields surrounding their home are minefields, a potentially deadly playground.
San Maria and N'Dala villages near Cuito Cuanavale
Located at the confluence of the Cuito and Cuanavale rivers, this area was the site of the largest tank battle in Africa since World War II. Between 1987 and 1988 FAPLA and UNITA, the two opposing forces in Angola's bloody civil war, fought. In the process tens of thousands of landmines were laid. The minefields stretch for 18km, with an estimated 60,000 mines. They have had a devastating impact on the local population, with the land surrounding Cuito Cuanavale being described as the 'fields of death.'
Lusserie village and the Lobito Corridor
"I have been telling my children about the threat of going to certain places because of the mines… Because even me, I am so afraid of the mines." Nanda, mother of 10
Nestled in Angola’s Bié province is Lusserei village which is home to approximately 1000 people. There is a minefield adjacent to the local primary school. National Road 250 connects Lusserei to Cuito train station—one of the many stops along the Lobito railway line (known as the Lobito Corridor). This railway runs from Tanzania, through Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and across Angola to the country’s Atlantic coast. The Lobito Corridor is an access point for development, but many of the adjacent rural communities are being left behind. Clearing the minefields will save lives and open the region for infrastructure development.
Nestled in Angola’s Bié province is Lusserei village which is home to approximately 1000 people. There is a minefield adjacent to the local primary school. National Road 250 connects Lusserei to Cuito train station—one of the many stops along the Lobito railway line (known as the Lobito Corridor). This railway runs from Tanzania, through Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and across Angola to the country’s Atlantic coast. The Lobito Corridor is an access point for development, but many of the adjacent rural communities are being left behind. Clearing the minefields will save lives and open the region for infrastructure development.
Protecting biodiversity in Cuando Cubango
South east Angola is home to some of world's most precious and unique ecosystems. The Cubango-Okavango River Basin is a network of rivers that traverse Angola, Botswana and Namibia. The starting point for the river basin is in the Angolan highlands where the Cuito and Cubango rivers originate. This basin is one of Angola's major biodiversity hotspots, but with little knowledge about what forest resources exist, or how they are being used by local communities, we have no way of protecting it. A regional forest inventory is being carried out to better understand and preserve the habitat.
