The Southern African Development Community (SADC) said Thursday that it had agreed to work closely to address the festering terrorist insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province but remained mum on the nature of regional intervention being mooted.
In a communique issued after an extraordinary summit of its double troika held in the Mozambican capital Maputo, SADC reaffirmed its solidarity with the Mozambican government in its efforts to address the escalating insurgency in Cabo Delgado, “which is also a threat to the SADC region.”
“Summit noted the progress in finding a lasting solution to terrorism and acts of violent extremism in Cabo Delgado province, and considered the proposed regional response in support of the Republic of Mozambique,” the bloc said in the communique issued late on Thursday.
It was, however, silent on the details of the proposed regional response although a previous emergency summit held in early April had recommended the deployment of SADC special forces to the troubled Mozambican region where Islamic State-linked insurgents have wrecked havoc since October 2017.
Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi is believed to be resisting the idea of a fully-fledged regional intervention force, preferring instead that his government handles some aspects of the response alone for sovereignty purposes.
Thursday’s summit was attended by the presidents of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania – which form the SADC Summit Troika – and Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, which make up the Troika of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security.
The meeting was convened in the wake of a recent surge in attacks on civilians and government installations by insurgents known locally as Al-Shabab although there is no link with the Somalian outfit that goes by a similar name and is aligned to Al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, the SADC Double Troika Summit agreed to convene an extraordinary summit before June 20 to be held in Mozambique, which would discuss the Cabo Delgado insurgency and other broader regional integration issues.
JN/APA