South African reconnaissance planes made a number of flights during April over the Namibia Health and Education Centre in Angola's Kwanza Sul province, according to information released by SWAPO's UK office. In its statement, SWAPO noted that such reconnaissance flights had in the past preceded South African attacks on Angola, such as the raid on the Kassinga refugee settlement on 4 May 1978.
The Namibia Health and Education Centre, located approximately 800 km from the northern Namibian border, is SWAPO's largest refugee settlement in Angola, accommodating over 25,000 Namibian refugees of all ages. The reconnaissance flights constitute a violation of Angola's territorial integrity not surpassed since the South African invasion of the country in 1975–76. In January–February 1981, representatives of the Angolan armed forces informed an International Commission of Inquiry that South African air force penetration did not normally extend further north than Benguela, 400 km from the Namibian border. This distance has now effectively doubled.
Material damage to Angola as a result of South African aggression since independence in November 1975 has surpassed US $7 billion.
During January and February 1981, South Africa carried out 150 reconnaissance flights over Angola. Angola also sustained 10 air raids, four operations by heliported troops, two landings by heliported troops, an incident of artillery shelling by regular South African troops, six land attacks, two large concentrations of troops and war material, and six incidents of strafing from the air, 28 soldiers and six civilians were killed.
Incursions occurred in the Ngiva, Mulemba and Xiede areas. A vital bridge on the Mocamedes railway was destroyed by South African troops landed from two Puma helicopters in the area between Mocamedes and Lubango, 250 km inside Angola. On 23 February, Angolan armed forces were reported to have taken back the village of Vila Nova, 300 km from the Namibian border and occupied by South African troops since 28 January.
During March, the Angolan authorities reported an increase in the number of reconnaissance flights, particularly in Mocamedes and Huila provinces in the south-west of Angola.
On 17 March, five SA Mirage aircraft overflew the town of Lubango, 200 km from the border. Three children and two women were killed when an agricultural area between Lubango and Humpata was bombed.
The South Africans also mounted an airborne attack on 17 March on a transit centre for Namibian refugees near Lubango, claiming that it was a SWAPO military base. A South African spokesman said that the raid, launched after repeated warnings to Angola that all "terrorist bases would be located and attacked even if they were in neighbouring countries", had been a great success and that all South African aircraft had returned safely to base.
The Angolan Department of Information and Publicity in Luanda, however, said that the location attacked was a reception centre for Namibian youths fleeing from forced military conscription. SWAPO security forces defending the centre had returned anti-aircraft fire and had shot down one of the South African Mirages. One plane succeeded in dropping a bomb which injured four youths and killed one.
During the first fortnight of April, South Africa carried out 28 actions, including 23 reconnaissance flights. Larger-scale actions included the landing of SA troops in the Mulemba locality, an incursion by ground troops in the Melunga direction, and the strafing of an Angolan army petrol tanker on the Xangongo-Ondgiva road, all on 6 April; an attack on troops protecting foreign journalists in Mupa commune on 10 April, resulting in one dead, two wounded, one vehicle and several weapons destroyed; the bombing of the E Male commune in Kunene province on 11 April by two Impala aircraft, destroying a building, killing two civilians and causing a great deal of material damage; an incursion by three tactical groups of South African troops, each comprising 30 men, in the Namacunde area on 13 April.
