File picture. Displaced women meet on December 11, 2020 at the Centro Agrrio de Napala where hundreds of displaced arrived in recent months are sheltered, fleeing attacks by armed insurgents in different areas of the province of Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique. (Photo by Alfredo Zuniga / AFP)
Southern African heads of state have resolved to discuss the security situation in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province at a special summit early in the new year amid growing concern in the region about intervention from outside the continent.
This was decided at a meeting on Monday of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Defence and Security Troika, which included President Cyril Ramaphosa, Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Tanzania’s Deputy President Samia Suluhu was also present as some of the attacks have spilled over into Mozambique’s neighbour.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi called the high-level meeting in Maputo after missing the last Troika meeting on the issue at the end of last month.
According to a short statement, in Portuguese, that followed the summit, the extraordinary summit in January is being called to, “… address the security situation in Mozambique”.
The meeting commended Nyusi for his, “… initiative to convene this event and expressed solidarity and support for Mozambique to tackle these challenges,” according to the statement.
The Mozambican government has been slow to recognise the increasing violence in the north of the country as a crisis that needs the intervention of its neighbours, and according to sources the Cabo Delgado situation was not discussed at length at this meeting.
International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor, however, told journalists at a briefing on Monday that South Africa stood ready to help. “We would be able to provide support to a sovereign state as asked for by them because we cannot impose ourselves,” she said.
She also said, “… our own security forces stand ready to defend our country should the need arise”.
It is believed that the violence, which often resembles jihadist attacks, is related to the discovery of natural gas there.
Portugal and the European Union have recently offered to help Mozambique train its forces against the militants.
Monday’s meeting also resolved to have an extraordinary summit, hosted by South Africa, on a regional strategy for the acquisition and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
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