ICRC delegation, Luanda, 1994. A man checking the list of people with messages awaiting them.

Normal; One of its last actions before scaling back its work in Angola was when the ICRC reunited a boy with his mother in Mussende, about 400 km south-west of the capital Luanda.

Serafim and his mother lost touch with each in 1998. He asked the ICRC for help in 2007, and a year later, the Angola Red Cross and the ICRC located his mother, who was eagerly awaiting his return. "I thought I would never see my mother again. It's like a miracle," said Serafim.

Serafim is one of thousands of children who were separated from their families between 1975 and 2002. Since the end of the war, the ICRC and the Angola Red Cross have resolved the cases of over 2,000 missing people, reunited more than 750 people with their families and handled 433,000 Red Cross messages.