Angola: Government forcibly evicts thousands

1. In the last four days approximately three thousand houses have been demolished and the same estimated number of Angolan families has been forcibly evicted in the (commonly called) Bagdad neighbourhood, in the Sector 5 of M’Bonde Chapéu, in the Kilamba Kiaxi municipality of Luanda.

2. The victims of the forced evictions have informed SOS Habitat activists and a delegation of FpD, UNITA and POC politicians who visited them yesterday, 26/07/09, that they were verbally warned by the authorities who carried out the demolitions that on Monday 27/07/09, any people who had stayed in their wrecked houses would be removed.

3. Considering that the average Angolan family unit consists of five to eight people, SOS Habitat estimates that the demolitions have evicted a minimum of approximately fifteen thousand people from their homes.

4. According to the current Angolan population “age pyramid”, the majority of the victims of this human rights violation are children and adolescents under the age of fifteen.

5. After the demolitions, the victims of the forced evictions were not properly rehoused pursuant to the norms that guarantee the respect for housing-related human rights.

6. This forced eviction operation was carried out with the help of a great apparatus of military and police forces. SOS Habitat activists were not able to enter the neighbourhood while the demolitions were taking place, due to the great military and police apparatus surrounding the area during the operation.

7. Initially, before it became one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the outskirts of Luanda, the land where the forcibly evicted families lived belonged to farmers who harvested it. This land has not been lawfully expropriated.

8. Today, some of the victims of the government forced eviction operation have claimed before SOS Habitat activists to have bought the land from farmers.

9. On the other hand, local farmers who have been receiving support from SOS Habitat for several years now, claim that their land was initially invaded in broad day light by people supported by self-described MPLA party structures.

10. We have tried to identify and contact the “Residents’ Committees” and/or other relevant structures but, according to the demolition victims present in the site today, the members of the residents’ organizations have “disappeared”.

11. Today, many of the victimized families were rescuing what is left of their belongings and possessions from the demolished houses.

• In the next few days we will divulge more complete and detailed information on this (yet another) human rights violation carried out
by the Government of Angola.

Appeals

a) SOS Habitat appeals to the Government of Angola to cease this kind of human rights violation immediately, eliminating once and for all the practice of forced evictions that are not preceded by a process of land expropriation pursuant to the law and by the dignified rehousing of those affected by the house demolitions.

b) SOS Habitat appeals to the representatives of the Angolan government partner countries present in Angola and the representatives of international institutions such as the UN and the European Commission Delegation, whose partnerships with Angola are rooted on the government’s respect for human rights, to visit this (yet another) forcibly evicted community.

b.1) We also appeal that this visit is carried out in the company of activists from SOS Habitat and other Angolan civil society organizations, who have been fighting for housing-related human rights.

c) SOS Habitat appeals to all who come in contact with this press release, in particular all national and international human rights organizations, to broadly disseminate this document.

Luís Araújo
Director of SOS Habitat
+244 912 507 343