Angola is recovering from more than four decades of violence. Its war for independence from Portugal, which ended in 1975, was followed by a 27-year civil war. At least 1.5 million people were killed and more than 4 million uprooted.

The war pitted the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The Cold War played a large part in this conflict. The Soviet Union and Cuba supported the then-Marxist MPLA, while the United States and South Africa backed UNITA. But when the Cold War ended, Angola's conflict continued. UNITA rebels funded themselves through diamonds, while the Luanda-based government relied heavily on oil sales.

In 1991 the two sides signed a peace deal. Elections were held in 1992, but UNITA rejected the results and resumed the war. Another peace deal was signed in 1994, but fighting broke out again in 1998 despite the presence of U.N. peacekeepers from 1995-99.

The war finally ended in 2002 when UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed by government troops. The Angolan army and UNITA rebels signed a peace deal in April that year. Many former UNITA soldiers have since been integrated into the national army.

Conflict has continued to simmer, however, in the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda between the separatist rebel group FLEC-FAC and government troops.

Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been president of Angola since 1979. The country's first general election since 1992 was due to take place in 2006 but was postponed until 2008.

Poor infrastructure is one of the key obstacles to Angola's economic recovery. Large parts of Angola are almost completely inaccessible - roads, bridges and railways are either mined, or have been washed away or destroyed during the war.

This also hampers the delivery of humanitarian aid and basic health and education services. Government officials and aid agencies say they cannot reach many vulnerable communities because of transport problems. Many agencies have to move people and goods by air.

Huge transport costs have pushed up the prices of basic commodities and medicines beyond the reach of many Angolans.

Water and electricity supplies are also in a bad state, as pylons, dams and reservoirs were mined during the war.

In 2005, the World Bank said Angola needed up to $30 billion over the next decade to rebuild its war-shattered infrastructure.

The government has begun a major road, school and health-centre building programme, which is funded by a $2 billion loan from China secured against oil revenues.

Some donors have been reluctant to give Angola aid because of allegations of large-scale corruption. It regularly comes close to the bottom of Transparency International's annual corruption index.
Angola is the most heavily mined country in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the most mined in the world, according to the U.N. Mine Action Service.

Government and rebel forces, as well as foreign armies, laid mines across the country. Major roads, bridges, railways and farmland were mined in all 18 provinces.

According to the national mine action database, more than 3,000 people were killed or injured by mines and unexploded ordnance between 1998 and 2003. Landmines continue to kill and maim dozens of people a year, according to the Landmine Monitor.

The presence of landmines makes transport by road and rail dangerous or impossible. It also makes it difficult to build health clinics and schools as land that could be used for construction may be mined.

Tens of thousands of refugees returning from camps in neighbouring countries are particularly at risk from mines as they seek out food and land, unaware of the risks of farming untilled ground.

The Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a British demining agency working in Angola, says it could take between 10 and 20 years to completely demine the country.

Angola is Africa's second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.

The government has pledged to make its oil sector more transparent since IMF investigators found evidence of widespread corruption in 2003, estimating that $1 billion a year went missing.

Much of Angola's oil wealth lies in Cabinda, an Angolan enclave situated between Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo, where a decades-long separatist conflict is simmering.

The Angolan government is raising major loans on the basis of its oil revenues. China has given the government massive loans against future oil revenues, with the money being used to help rebuild the country's infrastructure.
Angola is one of the world's largest diamond producers.

During the war, rebel forces controlled many of the diamond mines and sold diamonds to buy arms. As a result the United Nations imposed sanctions on these "conflict diamonds".

In a bid to clean up the industry after the war and crack down on smuggling, the government has expelled hundreds of thousands of illegal foreign miners since 2004. Amnesty International has reported severe human rights abuses carried out by police against suspected diamond smugglers.

State diamond company Endiama has signed a series of deals with foreign investors, including De Beers.

The diamond giant pulled out of Angola in 2001 over a dispute with the government and Endiama, but has since signed an agreement to prospect for diamonds in a 3,000 square km (1,160 square mile) concession area in northeastern Lunda Norte province.

Despite the multi-million dollar earnings from diamond mining, many people living in the diamond-rich provinces of Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul still have no drinking water, electricity or roads, according to Partnership Africa Canada.
The majority of Angolans depend on agriculture.

Before the war, Angola was a major exporter of coffee and maize. But agricultural production plummeted during the conflict, and now hundreds of thousands of people depend on food aid.

Many people who were forced off the land for decades have lost their farming skills, the U.N. World Food Programme says. The soil, apart from being contaminated with landmines, has lost its productivity. And the country is prone to periodic flooding and drought, which put farmers at risk of losing everything.

Commercial agriculture - including coffee - has not yet recovered and there is little incentive for farmers to move into cash crops because getting them to market is so difficult. Chickens, for example, are transported by air because using roads would take too long, cost too much and many would die.
Nearly 4 million internally displaced people and more than 370,000 refugees have returned home since the war ended, or settled in the communities that took them in.

A refugee repatriation programme officially ended in 2007. The vast majority of refugees still living abroad are in Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo. By the end of 2007 there were fewer than 200,000, according to the 206,500, according to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR.

It's hard to find new statistics, but in 2005 there were 61,500 internally displaced people still living in limbo, UNHCR estimated. Most were in Cabinda, Huila, Kuando Kubango, Luanda and Moxico provinces. Few live in camps though, with most families housed with relatives, friends or hospitable villagers.

People returning home face huge obstacles. Most have few assets. They have few seeds and tools to farm, have limited opportunities to earn an income and little access to basic services including schools and clinics.

According to Amnesty International, an inadequate system for issuing identity papers has left many returnees without access to social services.

They are also vulnerable to extortion and ill-treatment by police and soldiers carrying out identity checks. In particular, refugees returning from Democratic Republic of Congo get accused of being illegal diamond smugglers.

Angola has some of the worst health statistics in the world, and one of the lowest life expectancies. Despite the country's oil and diamond riches, spending on health and education is nominal.

A quarter of children die before the age of five, many of them killed by malaria, diarrhoea, respiratory diseases, measles, recurrent cholera epidemics and sleeping sickness. Many children are permanently stunted from lack of food, and health services barely extend into rural areas.

In 2004 and 2005, an outbreak of the rare Marburg virus haemorrhagic fever killed 329 people, most in northern Uige Province.

Access to education is minimal, with fewer than six in 10 children attending primary school. Illiteracy rates, as a result, are high.