These data, which exclude movements by air, must understate actual migration. Nevertheless, it se,»ms clear that, despite the active encouragement of the Portuguese Government, emigration to the African
territories was snail in comparison with that to Western Europe. After
the political events of 1974, the migration balance shifted direction.Statistics on passenger movements by sea and by the Portuguese Airline (TAP) show a net return migration to Portugal of 34,000 from Angola and 35,000 from Mozambique in 1974. Later, with growing civil conflict in Angola, the movement turned into a mass exodus. The number of refugees who returned to Portugal from Angola and Mozambique, many of them by special airlifts, was estimated at half a million by early 1976. In Mozambique, which had a white population of about 163,000 whenacensus was taken in 1970, only 50,000 Portuguese were said to remain by 1976.
17/ The New York Times, 1 March 1976; see also Gould, W.T.S.
African and International migration, African Population Mobility Project, Working Paper, No. 16 (Liverpool, 1974).
18/
55
-CHAPTER FOUR
THE PROBLEMS OF ESTIMATION, REFUGEES AND BRAIN DRAIN, GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND THE ROLE OF ECA
MIGRATION ESTIMATION
106. Information on the number, sex and ages of persons entering or leaving a defined area during a given period of time, together with data on the
number of persons enumerated in that area at the beginning of the time interval and the births and deaths occuring during the intervals are important for
the estimation of the size and structure of the population at the end of the interval and also for the preparation of population projections. Data on
migration thus form an integral part of the totality of a country's demographic statistics, the remainder of which relate to vital events and to the size and composition of the national population itself. 1/. Unlike fertility and
mortality, there are greater problems in the estimation of the migration variable as an input to population projections. Certainly estimates of
migration patterns, levels and trends can be obtained from conventional data sources as discussed in Chapter 2 including statistics on place of birth, and year of emigration or immigration. The various methods for deriving migration estimates from these statistics as well as the analytical problems involved are well documented 2J,
107. Available scanty information reviewed in the preceding chapters indicates that from time immemorial, population movements had taken place in various parts of Africa. Africans had moved as warriors, pastoral fishermen, pilgrims, traders, refugees or slaves. However, even as late as the mid-1970s, the data available on these movements were scanty and poor in quality; besides, the character of the movements made any quantitative study a rather difficult task. The limited censuses of the countries conducted by the mid-1970s tended to concentrate on basic questions for derivation of information of total
population size, its composition and distribution and less emphasis was placed on direct questions for estimating migration. The scanty information derived from statistics of arrivals and departures of international migrants yield only net estimates of the movements. Even where such net estimates exist by sex, the breakdown by 5 year age groups needed for population projections is often not available. Besides,, even the available statistics on these net estimates are rather insignificant relative to the corresponding total estimated population. But more importantly, the available statistics on
arrivals and departures are often misleading because they include tourists and businessmen. For countries with a significant number of tourists, the statistics from this source became even less dependable ir. t^rr.s of r-.-at migration
estimation.
— United Nations Recommendations In ' -w.~ v^tjc" _~Jr I n r. :■ r n, ■ ■: i o n a i Mi g r at i o u, op. cit.
— £■ c United Nations L-Ianual 6 ('.". - Yoiv . 19?-." 'c■■■■L'-.'.or. >tudies>No. 47.
Chapters 1-3.
56
-REFUGEES
108. According to the United Nations, a refugee is a person who usually migrates of his own volition, though there may have been strong pressures on him to migrate because his continued stay in his country of origin may have exposed him to danger of persecution (United Nations, 1958) Available statistics indicates that Africa appears to have the highest number of refugees and displaced persons in the world 3/. In 1975, there were an estimated number of 1,148,000 African refugees in various
countries of Africa. As reported in a recent publication 4/t the numbers of these refugees are in a constant state of flux, for while certain groups are being repatriated, new political conflicts springing up elsewhere add to the totals. Most of the refugees are in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, with relatively few in Western Africa.
According to the UNHCR estimates, the largest single group of refugees in Africa were the 460,000 Angolans in Zaire at the end of 1975.
109. Refugees from two other former Portuguese Territories, who had fled to neighbouring countries, were beginning to be repatriated in 1975.
It was estimated that some 65,000 refugees had returned from Senegal and Gambia to Guinea-Bissau by May 1975. In Mozambique, refugees began to return following the establishment of a transitional government in pre paration for full independence in June 1975. By March 1975 about 50,000 had returned from neighbouring countries where they had sought refuge ; by the end of 1975, it was estimated that 33,700 remained in the United Republic of Tanzania. Another large-scale recent repatriation movement involved about 180,000 Sudanese who had been living in the Central African Empire, Ethiopia, Uganda and Zaire. Next to Zaire, the United
Republic of Tanzania had the largest refugee population in 1975 - about 171,000 of whom 110,000 had come from Burundi during 1972 and 1973.
Uganda had about 78,000 refugees from Rwanda.
110. A comprehensive overview of the numbers of refugees by
countries of asylum and origin is given in Tables 12 and 13. From both tables, it is interesting to note that some of the countries of asylum are themselves countries of origin for the refugees. For example, Sudan had 91,000 Ethiopian refugees and Ethiopia had about 11,000 Sudanese refugees in her territory in 1975 (Table 12). A similar situation existed between Burundi and Rwanda, and Zaire and Angola in 1978-79 (Table 13).
3/ World Population trends and Policies: 1977 monitoring report (United Nations, 1979), Chapter IV.
4/ Ibid.
57
-Table 12