Poverty and illiteracy in Angola

Poverty and illiteracy in Angola describe both a deep social inheritance and an immediate material crisis: widespread deprivation left much of the population with few resources, while the war exposed how precariously cities depended on essential services and the people able to keep them running.

Historical and Social Conditions

The account attributes Angola’s poverty to centuries of neglect and abuse under colonial powers, which kept the African population at very low nutritional and educational levels. It describes Angolans as among Africa’s poorest societies and reports that more than 90 percent of the population was illiterate. Only 10 percent of black Angolans lived in cities; much of the population consisted of poor, hungry peasants living by subsistence agriculture, or close to destitution.

These figures describe more than a lack of income. They point to restricted access to education, health care, and the means to withstand disruption. The book also identifies malnutrition and the absence of even rudimentary health care as contributors to Angola’s low population, placing poverty within a longer history of deprivation rather than treating it as a temporary consequence of war.

Uneven Settlement and Urban Dependence

Angola’s population was concentrated unevenly across its territory. More than half its inhabitants lived in just 9 percent of the country, while 91 percent lived on less than half of its land. Such concentration made the condition of towns and the systems serving them especially consequential: where people gathered, access to water and supplies depended on infrastructure that could become a military target.

In Luanda, water shortages made this dependence visible. The pumping stations stood near the front lines and were repeatedly destroyed after repairs, leaving residents without a reliable supply. The narrator describes walking through the city in need of water as the heat intensified, while the water system’s vulnerability turned an ordinary necessity into a threat to the city’s continued functioning.

Wartime Scarcity and Essential Services

The retreat of municipal workers deepened the crisis. Firefighters abandoned their station, leaving engines and equipment behind. Soldiers later got one fire engine working and used it to carry water to the front; its visibility made it an easy target, and it was struck and left disabled. The episode shows how a resource intended for one civic emergency was repurposed for military supply, only to be lost in the fighting.

Garbage collectors also left Luanda. With waste accumulating across streets and public spaces, the city’s remaining residents faced deteriorating conditions at the same time that doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies were no longer available. In the hotel, Felix reported that the water had been out for three days and that the last wells were running dry. The shutdown of basic services made the city’s poverty tangible: even the small remaining population could not rely on water, sanitation, or medical care.

Repair, Supply, and the Limits of Survival

The account contrasts systemic breakdown with the fragile labor that kept Luanda going. At the Bengo River pumping station, Alberto Ribeiro was the only person able to repair the pumps. Because Luanda could endure only five days without water, his work had consequences far beyond the station: a breakdown, shelling, or an accident could force the city to surrender within days. The water supply thus depended on one engineer working at a vulnerable point near the front.

A similar dependence shaped the transport of food and military supplies. Ruiz, flying the MPLA’s only plane in Luanda, carried ammunition and bags of flour to besieged cities and brought seriously wounded people back. His flights linked isolated places to the city, but the account makes clear that this connection rested on a damaged aircraft, a single pilot, and uncertain access to landing grounds. Poverty and wartime scarcity appear not as abstract statistics alone, but as shortages repeatedly negotiated through vulnerable infrastructure and the limited work of individuals.