Rosa Luciano is very striking.
She has long thick dark hair that is pulled to one side of her face, and wears a warm smile. She stands in the middle of a garden with the palms of her hands outstretched. It's difficult to tell from the photograph exactly where she is. Her mother answers my questions very precisely. The car driving her back to Luanda was attacked by supposed UNITA rebels. They killed some of the people in the car, then took Rosa and another woman away. One of those left for dead survived to tell Rosa’s mother. This was in 1994 when she was 28 years old. Maybe by now she would have been married with children. Maybe she is married with children. Maybe she is dead.
After 27 years of civil war, no one knows exactly how many people are missing in Angola. Since the end of the war in April 2002, thousands of people have been trying to trace their loved ones. Estimates vary from 10-70,000. Relatives gather at Independence Square (designated with posters as the 'meeting point') with photographs and documents to prove that these people did once exist. Even national television has started a new programme which broadcasts these appeals to as wide an audience as possible.
There are many reasons why people disappear during war. In Angola, people were killed by both sides: it’s common knowledge that civilians are the casualties of war. War also breeds paranoia, and people were executed as the result of false accusations and purges, or in order to teach someone else a lesson. Thousands were also kidnapped to conduct the war, young underage boys snatched from the streets of Luanda to fight on behalf of the government MPLA side, or women like Rosa, who may have ended up as forced wives and porters to Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA fighters.
These disappearances strike right at the heart of Angola’s tragedy. While government figures avoid discussion about a billion-dollars missing from oil revenues, and President Dos Santos enjoys his victory with visits from the US (former adversary and supporter of UNITA), in the form of Colin Powell, the citizens of Angola have little to celebrate.A woman collapses moments after she is reunited with a long lost daughter, and even when organizations like the International Red Cross can reunite someone, it does not necessarily mean a happy ending. Imagine the mind of ten year old, snatched from his village and forced to fight against and kill his own people. Imagine him growing up for 10 years in the bush, foraging for food and sleeping rough. Recaptured at 20, he lives under the care of an orphanage until he is reunited with his family. His father is desperate to see him, but the boy…

If only this trauma could be made to disappear.