The Guardian visited Angola in 2001 as the long civil war – aggravated by the interventions of Henry Kissinger – between Unita and the government neared its end. The images show how the conflict affected the people and landscape around the city of Kuito in Bie province

• Photographs by Antonio Olmos

After largely ignoring the continent for years, Henry Kissinger, who shaped US foreign policy from 1969 to 1976 as secretary of state, became involved in successive crises in Ethiopia, Angola and Rhodesia in the 1970s.

The US intervention in Angola complicated the emerging conflict there that followed Portugal’s withdrawal from its African colonies after the fascist dictatorship was overthrown in a coup in Lisbon. Concerned that the communist MPLA forces would sweep to power and open the way for Soviet influence, Kissinger led the US into a lengthy involvement in Angola.

Top, a boy runs past a bullet-scarred government building in Kuito. A woman chops the stump of a tree. Refugees camped out near Cuemba deforested the area to provide shelter and fuel for cooking and heat. Bottom, mother and child at the Cuemba refugee camp. A family waits to be seen by doctors at a medical centre run by Médecins Sans Frontières in Camacupa