The president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, is in Uganda for a two-day official visit in his capacity as the African Union champion for finding solutions to forced displacements on the continent.
While in Uganda President Obiang Nguema will be visiting some of the refugee camps in the country to get first-hand experience on how Uganda has successfully handled the refugee crisis.
In a tete-a-tete meeting Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni thanked President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo for the visit in order to highlight the crucial issue of refugees.
He noted that Uganda did not have political problems with refugees because of the country’s Pan- Africanism orientation.
“Our tribes here are interlinked right from Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. The only challenges that we face now are to do with mainly logistics,” Museveni said.
Commenting on one of the biggest causes of the refugee crisis as being terrorism, Museveni noted that Africans must desist from such a tendency because it fuels refugee crises.
President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo appreciated Museveni and Uganda for opening up the borders to accommodate different nations’ citizens fleeing from war.
He encouraged other African countries to emulate Uganda.
“I am here to be able to see face to face how the refugee settlements run and how the policies operate. It is very difficult to eradicate the issues of refugees because of things like terrorism but we must do our best,” he said.
Obiang Nguema Mbasogo called upon African leaders to discourage fighting among their people and jointly look into curtailing illegal arms to curb terrorism.
He added that Equatorial Guinea was planning to organize and host what he called the ‘Silence of Arms’ Conference in March 2020 to advocate for illegal arms restriction.
CN/as/APA