After the Unita leader was assassinated a year ago the remaining leadership agreed to talks and a formal ceasefire was signed. But was Savimbi’s death really a necessary condition for ending the war?

Seventeen-year-old Tina twisted the strap of her handbag as she told how she was assaulted by soldiers in Cabinda. ”They said, ‘If you run away, I’ll kill you.’ They took me to the barracks, sent me to a room there. The commandant pushed me on to the bed and started beating me”.

In the river at Capembe women do the laundry and children splash around while the cattle take a drink and the men dig for diamonds. Fernando Jose Palanca puts down his pickaxe and stops for a break on top of the hill of grey mud that he and his colleagues have dug up from the river bed.

The gas flares from the offshore oil rigs light up the night sky over Cabinda and the orange glow silhouettes the crucifixion statue outside the Catholic mission next to the sea. Inside, members of the Catholic Youth of Cabinda are debating the future of Angola’s northernmost province.

There are half a dozen beds in the hospital in Cuemba. But there are no mattresses, so children lie on the concrete floor rather than on the bare metal slats. One little girl is curled up in the corner, coughing under what seems to be the only blanket available. Other children have nothing.