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taking advantage of the fact that the settlers live in isolated farms, which makes rescue missions more difficult. they also attack the territories close to the border with Congo where UPA has a safe rearguard. UPA also tries to restrict the movement of rescuers and fleeing victims by obstructing the roads with trees and destroying bridges in order to aggravate the blockade, their plan was carefully prepared to match with the seasonal rains. with machetes, rocks, clubs and canhangulos (muskets), europeans and africans, men, women and children, had been slaughtered at dawn. We arrived at 8 am on the March 15th, and the action promptly began. The ones who manage to escape, fled to Luanda the ones who couldn't escape, were all killed. (reenactment made by the Cartographic Service of the Portuguese Army) For UPA, on that day's trial there were no innocents, parents or children, they were all guilty, chased down and massacred, raped and tortured. We could kill with machetes or with clubs, because we didn't have other weapons, we only had machetes, clubs and rocks. Some were killed with rocks, some with clubs and some with machetes. [Manuel Cruz Alegre - merchant in Carmona in 1961] On the public square, there was the baker, his wife and their daughter. Their daughter was six or seven. At the administration house, there was Faísca's wife, the municipal gardener, With a strike of machete, they separated his head from his torso. Their two children were still on their pajamas, and other one of their children, also dead. [Pedro Santos Rodrigues - UPA commander in 1961] The whites (the settlers) couldn't let their farms be destroyed without trying to defend them. We killed them. In fact, the truth is that we killed the farmers. We killed them. [General Almeida Bruno - Lieutenant in 1961] It is shocking. And one has to understand that seeing a slaughtered woman is something that you cannot forget, it haunts you forever. The massacres were not only on the 15th and 16th of March, UPA was looking forward to enlarge their rank and file, by recruiting new militants, specifically on the farms where the bailundos worked. The ones who did not adhere to the uprising were enemies like the settlers. On that farm, Maria José, I don't remember having to bury an european. I only buried blacks (africans). Women, men, children, very badly treated. Indeed, that is well documented so I am not going to be here telling you what I saw. The sight of the dead, that I can recall perfectly, mainly the children. What is most shocking is seeing children torn apart. [José Mateus Lelo - UPA militant in 1961] Those children, we cannot tell that we did not kill them. Because war doesn't choose. Villages and farms were strewn with corpses Around 1000 europeans and 5000 to 6000 africans, their allies, rural workers and servants. Although there were bailundos in the ranks of the rebels, UPA was a bakongo movement, the common tribe from Northern Angola to Congo. [Holden Roberto - UPA president in 1961] As I said, we were overtaken. But a mullato pastor, old Gurgel, told me something: those blacks that were killed, they were worse than the portuguese they were known to the locals. their behavior was unworthy, so the population reacted over them. I understood. [Cosmo Manuel - UPA militant in 1961] We went to the farms, to contact with the workers. The ones we recruited passed to our side. The ones who were against us, those were no longer with us. It was not only the white who were settlers. There were angolan settlers, A lot of them also had farms and also punished their workers. And we also consider enemies those who supported the settlers, But it was not supposed to kill the people randomly. Only the settlers, or the ones who supported them. After the March 15th, the fields become demarcated The UPA operations take place over a large area, where there are practically neither military nor police forces. Only the air force is in conditions to act swiftly, in spite of the limited and inadequate resources available. Only 6 Nord Noratlas, transport airplanes, along with some reconnaissance aircraft and 6 PV-2 Harpoon provided by NATO for the anti-submarine war, but that will be later refitted into bombers. Tactical aviation is the main gap in the air force scheme comprised of the Luanda, Henrique de Carvalho and Negage bases. Negage is the closest base to the affected area, nevertheless being only a small runaway of dirt, where only one month before, had the air force airplanes started landing. 4 auster light airplanes, 4 pilots and 4 mechanics, were the only force available to the base commander, who, on the day of the attacks, flew over the attacked zone. [Ten. Cor. Soares de Moura - Commander of the Negage Air Force Base, 1961] I remember very well over Quitexe, I looked below to see a gas station, and I saw that all the men were carrying weapons. whites, Something I had never seen before. I flew around and saw a lot of small houses (cubatas) on fire. And people were waving on the ground. So then I landed there and asked: "why is everything on fire?" And the administrator, someone who knew much more about Africa than me, told me: "that is a sign that the locals did something bad and that they have no intentions in returning to that place again" Quickly the news arrive, brought by panicked people saved by an airlift that begins to operate. All aircraft are chartered by the authorities and all the regular southbound routes are suspended the terror strikes the natives too, they also look for shelter, divided between supporting the rebels and remaining loyal to the settlers. the european families flee, resisting as they can or separating themselves. The men stay, women and children begin an exodus some go to Lisbon others to Luanda, sometimes disembarking in a state of shock. - "What brought you to Luanda?" - It was escaping from death. - The people that were from Cape Verde they would also kill. - Your husband is also from Cape Verde right? - Yes, Sir. - Did he stay defending the land? - Yes he did, he stayed with his rifle. - "Did you lost loved ones in Nova Caipenda?" - Two: son and husband. There were women who arrived there that didn't speak, didn't talk, didn't cry, didn't drink, didn't eat, didn't accept nothing we knew perfectly that she had spend all night with... the blacks had entered her home and had only released her at dawn. she had stayed there all night with 30, 40, 50, I don't know... Waves of refugees, burden with traumas, dispute a place in an overloaded airplane that can give them safe passage to Luanda. Supported by an improvised emergency plan, it is around 10.000 the number of people that arrive at the capital Not always capable of containing their despair. Once, the pilot of a Noratlas said to me: - "commander, I cannot take off with that much people on board." There were times they took off with 170 people on board, when the normal is 40 or 50. I started pushing the people who were close to the door, but they would keep pushing themselves towards the door. And then we managed to take out a few kids and I said: Look, ladies, you either get out or those kids will stay here for the night.