The violence, corruption and generalised poverty marring more than three decades of independence in Portugal’s five former colonies in Africa, and five years of independence in East Timor, have been the main obstacles for development in these countries, but not the only ones. Brain drain is another phantom that is slowly but inexorably destroying hopes for progress and wellbeing for the people of Guinea-Bissau, which became independent in 1974, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, which became independent in 1975, and East Timor, independent since 2002.