Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025.

Country Report: Angola (Part 1)

​Throughout 2024, Angolan police were credibly implicated in killings, sexual violence, excessive use of force, arbitrary detention, and torture and other ill-treatment of activists and protesters. Children continued to face the consequences of a drought and food crisis, with 38 percent of children in the country suffering from chronic malnutrition. President João Lourenço signed laws that fail to meet international human rights standards and severely restrict freedoms of the media, expression, and association. Angolan prisons continued to experience overcrowding. 

Police Brutality 
Detainees accused police of carrying out extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, torture and other ill-treatment, and use of excessive force during arrests. In Lunda Norte province, police in March used live bullets to disperse a crowd of people who were protesting the alleged police killing of an artisanal diamond miner. 
Angola’s association of street vendors accused police of sexual assault, beatings, harassment, and illegal seizure of property of women street vendors across the country. 

Police officers reportedly tortured six people in Luanda, Bié, and Lunda Sul provinces between April and June, to coerce confessions to crimes, according to a report by the local Mudei Movement. 

In September, the police minister, Eugénio Laborinho, acknowledged that police officers on duty “regrettably make mistakes, some of which culminate in the loss of human life." He added that about 78 officers were expelled from the national police for misconduct between January 2023 and mid-2024. 

Children’s Rights 
Children continued to face the consequences of a worsening drought and food crisis, with 38 percent of the children suffering from chronic malnutrition. The country is one of the most affected by a major food crisis affecting Central and Southern Africa, according to the World Food Programme. As of May, 1.5 million people, including thousands of children from the lowest income farming-dependent households, faced acute food insecurity in southern Angola. At least 22 children reportedly died from acute malnutrition. 

In early 2024, Namibian authorities repatriated Angolans, including dozens of children— many unaccompanied—who were found begging or selling wooden artifacts in Namibia’s cities and towns. Many of the children are from drought affected areas of Angola’s southern Cunene, Huila, and Namibe provinces. They had fled the region and crossed the border to Namibia in search of food and jobs. 

In May, health authorities said they were investigating the reported death in Luanda of more than 30 children under 12, who had symptoms such as stomach pain and fever, after consuming “very cloudy, yellowish water” that came out of taps in the Viana neighborhood. As of late November, authorities had not publicly presented the outcome of their investigation. 

Dozens of children’s foster homes in Malange province faced the risk of closure as the country struggles to recover from an economic crisis. 

In its 2024 State Budget, the Angolan government reduced by 50 percent financial resources for the SOS Criança helpline, the only national helpline for children to call in cases of violence, abuse or neglect or to obtain information and referrals, according to UNICEF. 

Human Rights Watch, World Report 2025. New York.