The League of Portuguese Combatants and the Luanda Provincial Government (GPL) today formalized agreements for the rehabilitation of cemetery spaces where Portuguese military personnel are buried, with work due to start on Thursday, according to the GPL.
The rehabilitation of cemeteries and the exhumation of bones to be placed in ossuaries in the Santana and Alto das Cruzes cemeteries (Luanda) were the topics of a meeting between a delegation from the Portuguese Combatants League, led by Colonel Batalha da Silva, and the Deputy Governor for the Economic Sector, Jorge Miguêns.
The project is part of Operation Imbondeiro and is the result of the Combatants’ League’s “Conservation of Memories” Strategic Framework Program.
The Portuguese Combatants’ League offered to rehabilitate these two cemeteries in order to honor the memory of the Portuguese soldiers who died in the service of the Portuguese Armed Forces in the last century.
A survey carried out by the Combatants’ League points to the existence of 187 places, including cemeteries and other burial spaces, where there are remains of Portuguese soldiers in Angola, totaling 1,548 references.
The president of the League, Lieutenant General Joaquim Chito Rodrigues, said when he went to Angola in October 2023 that the operation is “complex and prolonged in time”, because the Angolan territory is large and during the conflicts of the last century, both military personnel from the then metropolis and those recruited locally fell into the service of the Portuguese Armed Forces and are scattered throughout the country.
