Angola was among the top five most representative nationalities in Portugal on December 31, 2012, after Brazil, Ukraine, Cape Verde and Romania, with a total of 20,366 resident citizens.
Ten years later, another 11,069 Angolans chose Portugal to reside, totaling 31,435, of which more than half preferred Lisbon (17,440), followed by Setúbal (5821) and Porto (2285).
The cities of Braga (905), Santarém (893) and Coimbra, with 712 citizens, have less than a thousand Angolans living there.
Madeira (40), Azores (41), Porto Alegre (57) and Guarda (59) are the locations with the lowest number of Angolan residents.
Data for the last year, made available to Lusa by the SEF, point out that most Angolans residing in Portugal are young people aged between 20 and 39 years old, totaling 12,158 citizens.
Angolans between 40 and 64 years old (10,150 citizens) were the second largest age group residing in Portugal, in 2022.
At least 7071 Angolans up to the age of 19 resided in Portugal in the last year, including 308 Angolans aged 80 and over.
Also according to the SEF, 54 Angolans made requests for international protection, in 2022, but were not accepted by the Portuguese migration authorities, as they were "unfounded".
In Luanda, the desire of Angolan citizens, especially young people, to emigrate to Portugal, which they consider "the gateway to Europe", in search of better living conditions, from studies and employment, due to "lack of hope" in the African country, is growing.
The "lack of hope" in Angola motivated a group of young people to create the so-called "Civic Movement Let's Leave Angola", centered on the exchange of information on emigration, with Canada, Turkey, Portugal and Brazil among the intended destinations.
The movement created a month ago by more than 20 young students and workers, who also wish to emigrate, serves as an information channel on internal and external procedures for emigrating, from passport processing to visas for the country of destination, how previously reported to Lusa.
Dozens of Angolans, mostly young people, fill the facilities in the new visa center for Portugal, in Luanda, in endless queues, looking for information, passports and/or applying for visas for Portugal.
Angolan sociologist Luzia Moniz considered last week that the "exodus" of "qualified" young Angolans and their families to Portugal and other parts of Europe results from the current political and economic "misgovernance" of the country, fearing a "recolonization" in Angola.
According to Luzia Moniz, the current emigration of young Angolans, with "failed hope" for the 2022 general elections, is different from that registered in the second half of the 1980s, where the latter, the less qualified majority, emigrated to escape alignment with war.
"That's why they were the least qualified and that's why almost all or most of them ended up doing jobs, such as public and private works, precisely because of their lack of qualification", she told Lusa.
Today the phenomenon "is different, people are not running away from the possibility of going to the battlefield, but are running away from the lack of social, economic and political conditions in the country", she pointed out.
"Misgovernance, this wrong model that the country has adopted in political and economic terms, is what leads many young people to flee now", stressed the journalist who is also based in Portugal.
