APA-Maputo (Mozambique) The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has extended by another year the mandate of a regional force that is assisting Mozambique to contain an insurgence in the north of the country.
In a communique released on Wednesday, SADC leaders agreed during an extraordinary summit to extend the mandate of the SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) to July 2024.
“Summit extended the Mandate of SAMIM by twelve (12) months, from 16 July 2023, to consolidate the gains achieved since the deployment of SAMIM,” the communique said.
SAMIM was deployed in July 2021 at the request of the Mozambican government which wanted support in fending off attacks by Islamic State-aligned militants who have wreaked havoc in the mineral-rich Cabo Delgado province since October 2017.
At least none SADC member states – Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe – have contributed troops or material to the regional force.
The leaders noted the improved security situation in Cabo Delgado province and the gradual return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their homes due to reduced terrorist activities.
They said the extension of SAMIM’s mandate is meant to “further enhance stabilisation processes and facilitate the safe return of internal displaced personnel (IDPs) to their places of origin.”
The summit also approved the mandate and supporting legal and operational instruments for deploying the proposed SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a regional response to address the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the eastern DRC.
SADC approved in May the deployment of a regional force to intervene in crisis-ridden eastern DRC where local and foreign armed groups have intensified destabilisation activities over the past year.
Renewed fighting by the armed groups – some of which are from neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi – has seen over 800,000 people being displaced from their homes in eastern DRC over the past year alone.
JN/APA