Mozambique: President welcomes readiness of EU to help with problems in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: President welcomes readiness of EU to help with problems in Cabo Delgado

6:21 CAT | 20 Jan 2021

Photo: Lusa

The Mozambican President “takes good note” of the readiness of the EU to support Mozambique in facing security problems in Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, a province which has been experiencing an armed insurgency for three years.

“The Mozambican Head of State has taken good note of the EU’s expression of interest in cooperating with Mozambique in the fight against terrorism”, said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Verónica Macamo.

She summarised the meeting held on Wednesday in Maputo between Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi and Augusto Santos Silva, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, representing the EU, in a statement to journalists.

In the context of Cabo Delgado, Nyusi “welcomed the EU’s willingness” to work with the Mozambican government “in the areas of logistics, health and military training, as well as others that the government considers important”, he added – describing Santos Silva’s visit as “a success”.

The visit by the head of Portuguese diplomacy came in response to Mozambique’s request to strengthen cooperation with the EU in September 2020, relating to the security situation in Cabo Delgado, to which Brussels responded positively.

“I am pleased with this meeting, because the best way to arrive at the concrete plan of European support is to start with such a clear and precise identification of what the priorities of the Mozambican authorities are,” Silva explained.

“The meeting with the Mozambican President was very clear in identifying the areas in which increased cooperation in the area of security can immediately benefit Mozambique”, Santos Silva underlined.

Military training, humanitarian action support to the population and support to the development agency for northern Mozambique [ADIN]. “These areas have been very clearly identified,” he said.

EU support to development projects in Cabo Delgado amounts to around 25 million euros and the province is among the priorities for humanitarian action, Santos Silva said, but to these dimensions “we need to add an increase in cooperation in the area of security”.

Bringing back to Europe as many contributions as possible “is the practical and immediate objective of the political mission” that he leads and also “of the technical work that since yesterday [Tuesday] is being carried out between EU teams and Mozambique.

“The EU has a very old, close and consolidated relationship with Mozambique, it does not replace the work of the Mozambican authorities, it does not replace the regional framework of cooperation between Mozambique and its neighbours” and “scrupulously respects the architecture of the African Union for peace and security”, he specified.

The armed violence in Cabo Delgado, where the largest private multinational investment in Africa is taking place, for the exploitation of natural gas, is causing a humanitarian crisis with more than 2,000 deaths and 560,000 displaced people, without housing or food, mainly concentrated in the provincial capital, Pemba.

Some of the incursions have been claimed by the ‘jihadist’ Islamic state group since 2019.

Augusto Santos Silva travelled to Mozambique during the six-month period in which Portugal assumed the rotating presidency of the EU Council and is still holding meetings with heads of European missions in Mozambique.

Meetings with NGO members are scheduled for Thursday, then with partner countries and the agenda ends with a joint meeting with the Mozambican ministers of Defence, Jaime Neto, and Interior, Amade Miquidade.

Source: Lusa