The Human Cost
500,000
disputed broad estimate
The 500,000 display total is a broad and disputed estimate for 27 years of combat, massacre, hunger, disease, displacement, and landmine harm. Civilian and military categories are incomplete and not consistently separable.
Each dot below represents 1,000 human lives. Scroll to watch the scale unfold.
Working allocation: 160,000 soldiers killed in combat, from wounds, or from disease. Each = 1,000 lives.
340,000 civilians killed — from violence, famine, disease, and displacement. Wars are not fought only by soldiers.
incl. 8,000 civilians
incl. 3,000 civilians
incl. 2,000 civilians
incl. 500 civilians
incl. 600 civilians
How Angolan Civil War's dead compare to other conflicts and events.
10 dead
Angola was left one of the most heavily mined countries on earth, with millions of landmines still killing and maiming civilians long after the war ended.
300,000 dead
Cuba rotated an estimated 300,000 soldiers and thousands of civilian workers through Angola between 1975 and 1991 — the largest foreign deployment ever mounted by a developing country.
500,000 dead
Estimates of the total dead over the 27-year war range from around 500,000 to over 800,000; the great majority were civilians killed by fighting, massacres, landmines, famine, and disease.