Mozambique: Courts annul local elections in Cuamba and Chókwè, order Maputo CDE to hand over ...
FILE PHOTO: Portugal's Secretary of State for European Affairs Ana Paula Zacarias. [File photo: Lusa]
Maputo’s authorisation for a European Union (EU) expert mission to the country is “a fundamental step” for European aid to move forward, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Affairs Ana Paula Zacarias said yesterday.
“This mission should have already taken place, but it did not materialise. It is important that the Mozambican authorities authorise this mission,” Zacarias said in the Portuguese Parliamentary Commission for European Affairs in response to a question from the Social Democratic Party (PSD.)
“Clearly the Mozambican authorities have to take into account, for this step to be taken, the security situation concerning the mission travelling to that region [Cabo Delgado], but it is a fundamental step so that more can be done,” she added.
The minister was referring to the assistance Mozambique had requested from the European Union, which had an “immediate response” from Brussels, but requires the deployment of an expert mission to the country to “make possible and materialise subsequent European support”, “without which it is difficult for the EU itself to clearly assess the amounts which will be needed”.
Zacarias stressed that the Portuguese government “is on Mozambique’s side at this difficult time”, and evoked the conversation held yesterday between the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa and the Mozambican President, Filipe Nyusi.
In a post on his official Twitter account, António Costa said he had communicated to Filipe Nyusi the availability of Portuguese support for Mozambique, “bilaterally, and within the framework of the European Union” in efforts to combat terrorism in Cabo Delgado.
Costa also said he hoped that the next bilateral summit between the two countries could be held in the second half of next year, in Maputo.
Cabo Delgado province, in the north of Mozambique, has been the target of attacks by armed groups for three years, some of which have been claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, which has caused a human crisis with around 2,000 deaths and 500,000 internally displaced persons, concentrated mainly in the provincial capital, Pemba.
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