"We are hungry", "hunger continues, we can die" and "we want our money" are sentences that could be read on the cardboards with which the demonstrators presented themselves this Monday in front of the premises of the Embassy of the Republic of Angola, in Lisbon.
They came to Portugal to carry out treatments that are not available in Angola, the Angolan State being responsible for paying their expenses, but they complain of irregular payments and, more recently, of delays of one year.
The 150 or so patients who are staying at two pensions in Lisbon - Pensão Luanda and Pensão Alvalade - from the same owner received until just over a month ago a daily meal which, for many, was the only one they made.
However, as several protesters told Lusa, the accumulation of debt led the owner to cut off this meal, further aggravating the precariousness of these patients who, given their pathologies, need quality and regular food.
These Angolans do not complain about the owner of the pensions, quite the contrary, because they understand that there are many debts and that he also has expenses.
In one of the posters held by the demonstrators one could even read "thank you, pensioner, for the love of your neighbor".
They now fear that the next step will be to run out of water and electricity if the Angolan state does not make its commitments.
Vitorino Leonardo, general secretary of the Association of Angolan Patients in Portugal (ADAP), has been in this country for 12 years undergoing hemodialysis treatment due to kidney disease.
Since he remembers that the payments are irregular, but now they are failing for a year.
44 days ago, he told us that because of the Angolan state's three-year debt to the landlord of the two pensions, "he has had enough and you have been very benevolent in putting up with all these years and feeding" these citizens.
Around 80 Angolan patients live in Pensão Luanda and around 70 in Pensão Alvalade. Here they enjoyed the only complete meal of the day, which stopped happening 44 days ago.
According to Vitorino Leonardo, many of the about 600 Angolan patients in Portugal are living from solidarity and support from organizations, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia or the church.
"They are patients with very critical pathologies," he said, recalling that many have chemotherapy, hemodialysis, or have diseases such as diabetes, for whom a regular and quality diet is essential.
However, they end up having to share "a dry bread", because those who help do not always have to help.
At 66, Mr. Alvaro has been in Portugal for 11 months and complains about not receiving any support since February.
"It's been 44 days since the food was cut off, nobody can take the medication anymore because the food doesn't exist," he told Lusa, adding that he can only survive because he attends a church that helps him.
In front of the Angolan Embassy in Lisbon, he regretted that no one responsible is willing to help these people.
"We have a flag, an anthem, an identity. If the ambassador is here it is because he swore the flag in Angola. He is here because of the Angolan community, he should solve the problem of the Angolans here," he said.
The Lusa agency tried, without success, to obtain a position on this issue from the Embassy of the Republic of Angola in Lisbon, by telephone.
