Mozambique–South Africa relations government. When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, thousands of Mozambique-born Whites moved across the border to South Africa, the descendants of which are today Portuguese South Africans. The Shangaan or Tsonga people live on both sides of the Mozambique–South Africa border. Black movement between the two states existed to a large extent due to the possibility of employment of Mozambicans in the mines of South Africa. The cross-border remissions form an important part of the Mozambican economy. South Africa played an important role in the Mozambican Civil War in supporting RENAMO against the FRELIMO government. South Africa and
History of the Jews in Mozambique History of the Jews in Mozambique The history of the Jews in Mozambique, until 1975, was closely connected with the history of Judaism through the former Portuguese empire, particularly those elements of it operating on the coastlines of the Indian Ocean. By the time the first Portuguese ships entered this ocean in the late 15th century, Jewish merchants and persons connected with sea work had lived on, and next to, this ocean for many centuries. As a European presence deepened by the late 19th century in the Portuguese East African colonial capital then called "Lourenço Marques", a cluster of Jews