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The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security acknowledges having received a letter from the Mozambican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and will assess possible means of assistance to Mozambique, a spokesman told Lusa, without revealing the letter’s content.
“We can confirm that the High Representative and vice-president [of the Commission, Josep Borrell] received a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mozambique. A response will be prepared and sent in due course, as always. However, we will not go into details about the content of this correspondence,” a spokesman for the European diplomatic corps said, declining to confirm whether Maputo had formally asked the EU for help in addressing the humanitarian and security crisis in the north of the country, in terms of training its forces to fight terrorism and logistical support.
The spokesman nevertheless recalled that, in a debate held last week in the European Parliament, the European Commission announced the opening of a political dialogue between Mozambique and the EU “focused on humanitarian, development and security issues in Cabo Delgado”, stressing that, “the EU reiterated to the [Mozambican government] its readiness to discuss assistance options, and will re-evaluate all the means of support available in light of the result of that dialogue”.
Last Thursday, during a debate in the European Parliament on the situation in Mozambique, promoted by Portuguese MEPs, the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen, who represented the Union’s executive in parliament, reiterated the EU’s solidarity with the people of Mozambique in the face of the “outbreak of armed violence” in the north of the country, “with a dangerous regional dimension”.
“We have a strong political and development relationship with Mozambique and we are ready to discuss options for assistance. I am also pleased to inform you that the Government and the EU have opened a political dialogue focused on humanitarian developments and security issues in Cabo Delgado,” she said.
The day before, the EU ambassador to Mozambique, António Sánchez-Benedito Gaspar, announced, at the end of a meeting in Maputo about the role of the Integrated Northern Development Agency (ADIN) in Mozambique, that the European Union wanted to define by the end of the year a reinforced support strategy for Cabo Delgado – the “opened political dialogue” the commissioner referred to in the debate in the Brussels.
“Work is already underway on a strategy to be finalised before the end of the year,” the EU ambassador said, adding out that it was a matter of urgency to establish “main lines of work”, and that there had already been some “mapping-out” with EU member states and partners on the cooperation that each could provide in the region.
The previous week, the situation in Cabo Delgado was also addressed in a meeting between the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, and Josep Borrell, in Brussels.
Although declining to reveal exact details of the conversation with the head of European diplomacy, Santos Silva on September 8 told journalists that they had been “examining options” for the EU’s unequivocal solidarity towards “the authorities and Mozambican people, so battered by the terrorist and ‘jihadist’ insurgency” to materialise more support.
“Under current conditions, I must say no more. We will see. What I wanted to say is that the situation in northern Mozambique is obviously a concern for Portugal and deserves Portugal’s attention, but it also deserves the EU’s attention. And, given that Portugal is going to assume the presidency of the Council of the EU, nothing is expected other than even greater attention to this problem, among the many that the EU has to deal with,” Santos Silva said.
The province of Cabo Delgado has been the target of attacks by armed groups for three years, some claimed by the ‘jihadist’ Islamic State group, but whose origin remains under debate, causing a human crisis with more than 1,000 deaths and 250,000 internally displaced persons.
It is estimated that, in 2019 and early 2020, 374,000 people were affected by inclement weather and floods, especially Cyclone Kenneth, in April of last year, which caused 45 deaths and devastated several villages, laying waste to public infrastructure such as schools and health facilities.
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