Cabo Verde- India relations

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History

1950s: Goan priests

Marcus.Mergulhao, June 17, 2026: The Times of India

Goan priests who went to Cabo Verde during Portuguese rule and continued to serve there, have proved to be a powerful link between the two former colonies.


“When Fr Pereira passed away, there were two days of prayers in Cabo Verde, with the country’s president, ministers, and top dignitaries among thousands in attendance for the funeral,” his nephew Fr Ralin de Souza told TOI Tuesday. 
“They were six (newly-ordained) priests from the Archdiocese of Goa who left in the late fifties and continued to work there even after Liberation. They did a lot of good work and the largest avenue being named after my uncle in 2020 is proof of the kind of influence he had in the country.” De Souza said. 


Fr Pimenta Pereira hailed from the Pajifond locality in south Goa’s Margao, and his family still lives in the same ancestral house. With him and five other priests on the mission to Cabo Verde was the bishop of Cabo Verde, Dom Jose Colaco, also from Margao. The last of the Goan missionaries to pass away was Fr Floriano Rodrigues, who was from Verna, in 2022.


“Cabo Verde will forever remain special. We were all naturally excited at their World Cup debut. Playing Spain on debut is scary, but they did remarkably well to hold them goalless. There are more people living outside the country than within, and since many of them come from diverse backgrounds, we didn’t really know how they would perform,” said de Souza, who attended his uncle’s funeral in 2007.


Sigmund de Souza, a veteran of Goa’s music scene, has never been to the archipelago nation of six lakh inhabitants off Africa’s west coast, but during a concert last week, a man hailing from the island approached him and told him they are related. 


“He said he was Jean Valadares Dupret, and that his grandmother is one of my wife’s aunts. She moved to France and her son went to Cabo Verde and settled there,” revealed Sigmund de Souza. 
 Until then, Sigmund’s connection to Cabo Verde was through music and Portuguese songs.Cabo Verdeans sway to the sound of morna with saudade its most famous song. 


“Saudade refers to longing. ‘Estou com muita saudade de voce’ (I miss you so much),” he said. 
 Saudade rings out every time the Blue Sharks take the field at the World Cup. And each time they play, you can be sure Goa too will be swaying to its tune.