Between April 1974 and the end of 1976, an estimated 235,000 of the 250,000 Portuguese in Mozambique fled the country. Famine and war produced another exodus in the 1980s, but this time of blacks. An October 1992 peace agreement left 4.5 million internally displaced and 1.5 million refugees abroad. Of the latter at the end of 1992, 1,058,500 were in Malawi; about 200,000 in South Africa, 136,600 in Zimbabwe, 75,200 in Tanzania, 48,100 in Swaziland, and 26,300 in Zambia. By May 1993 about 750,000 people in both categories had returned home.
In October 1992, the 16-year civil war ended with a peace treaty. Between 1992 and 1996, the UNHCR completed the largest repatriation project it has ever conducted in Africa. Over1.3 million refugees returned to Mozambique from Malawi; 241,000 returned from Zimbabwe; 23,000 returned from South Africa, and 32,000 returned from Tanzania.
In 2000 there were 366,000 migrants living in Mozambique, including a small number of refugees. In that year the net migration rate was 0.8 per 1,000 population, a significant change from 10.7 per 1,000 in 1990. The government views the migration levels as satisfactory.