In the Angolan theater, the main focus of the Portuguese Navy effort was the protection of the Zaire River, to avoid the infiltration of &lt;a href="National%20Liberation%20Front%20of%20Angola"&gt;UPA/FNLA&lt;/a&gt; and MPLA guerrillas from the bordering Republic of Zaire. This mission was done by the patrol and landing crafts of the Zaire Flotilla, occasionally supported by frigates, and by units of Marines using rubber boats. The interdiction of the Zaire River was so successful that the Portuguese was able to stop the infiltration of the guerrillas, allowing the Portuguese Forces to defeat and almost totality eliminate them from Northern Angola, virtually terminating the war in the region in the early 1970s. The defeat and elimination of the guerrillas in Northern Angola, led the independence movements to re-orientate their activity to the vast, remote and almost desert areas of Eastern Angola in the late 1960s, benefiting from support and bases in the neighboring Zambia. To respond to this move, the Navy also started to focus in Eastern Angola, establishing naval and Marine units at more than from the coast. These operated in the Zambezi, Cuando, Cuanza and other local rivers, against the MPLA and UNITA guerrillas that were active in the area. In the end of 1968, the Command of the Navy Forces in the East was established in a base located in a region known as the Terras do Fim do Mundo (the Lands of the End of the World), that gave origin to a small town named Vila Nova da Armada (New Town of the Navy).