On February 4, Africans stormed Portuguese police stations and prisons in Luanda in an attempt to liberate several fellow Africans who had been held for months without trial. The unrest quickly spread to the north, and within days an estimated 1,000 Portuguese colonists had been killed by the Africans, whose forces had quickly become a rebel army.

The government's response to the rebellion was quick, and deadly. The Portuguese Department of Defense announced in July that it had regained control of the towns in North Angola and that forces under the leadership of nationalist Holden Roberto had been driven into the rain forests.

A native rebel shields his head with his hands in an attempt to escape a brutal beating by Portuguese-trained Angolan police in Luanda.

Rebel fighters receive instruction in guerrilla tactics at a training center in northern Angola, in August.

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This page was last updated on February 03, 2019.