AFRICA/ANGOLA - Many disadvantaged minors in Angola’s larger cities get caught in crime, the local Catholic Church works to free them

Wednesday, 1 March 2006

Luanda (Fides Service) - Angola’s National Crime Investigation Office recently expressed concern for the growing number of minors in large cities caught up in criminal activity. Local Catholic Church sources in the capital Luanda say minors are driven to get involved in crime by a situation of “massive urbanisation in the years of civil war and widespread unemployment”. Deputy director of the DNIC national office for crime investigation Nascimento Cardoso said that the police had arrested or warned some 3,189 youngsters aged 14 and 15 in the last 4 years.
Between 2001 to 2005 police detected 609 minors involved in crime in the province of Luanda, 261 in Huila and 188 in Benguela. Mr Nascimento Cardoso said these provinces register the highest number of cases involved in crime because numerous children and teenagers live in difficult situations in which contact with criminal circles is frequent.
“Aware that this serious problem needed to be tackled for some time now the local Church has been assisting youth in the poorest districts of Angola’s cities” the local Catholic sources said. “In Luanda for example the Salesians have several professional training schools where street children are taught a trade in view of finding work and a better future. Missionaries are not afraid to get in this risky mission even in some of the most dangerous parts of the capital like the Lixeira or refuse dump market, one of the largest open markets in all Africa”.
“In the capital there is also a home for street children run by a community of Divine Word missionaries and most of the Catholic parishes offer assistance and guidance for minors at risk” the sources say.
Another problem connected with crime in general not only juvenile, is the high number of firearms in circulation a leftover of years of civil war which ended only in 2002. “The Justice and Peace Commission of the Angolan Bishops’ Conference started a programme to convince people with firearms to hand them over to the police” the sources say. “And recently the same Commission launched a campaign to increase awareness among the people and the authorities of the urgent necessity to take more decisive measures to proceed with disarmament also in view of political elections which should be held this year”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 1/3/2006 righe 32 parole 370)


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