On the streets of Luanda MPLA and FNLA partisans fought for control of the capital and both sides were responsible for massacring unarmed recruits of the opposite factions.  Within the MPLA self-defense committees of the podar popular (people's power) movement had formed in the previous year to counter violent riots by whites.  Led by Nito Alves, the podar popular committees began to commit atrocities of their own and threatened the MPLA leadership with their radicalism.  Faced with violence in the streets of Luanda and particularly in the northern areas controlled by the FNLA, whites, mesticos, and assimilados fled the country in large numbers--nearly 250,000 left during a six-month long airlift starting in May of 1975.