Mozambique: Namoto border post with Tanzania to reopen soon

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Mozambique: Namoto border post with Tanzania to reopen soon

4:53 CAT | 09 May 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes. [File photo. @DelgadoCabo]

Mozambique plans to reopen the border post with Tanzania in Namoto, Cabo Delgado, destroyed during the five years’ armed insurgency in the province, a government source has said.

“We are doing everything to reopen the Namoto post very soon,” Minister of the Interior Arsénia Massingue announced on Monday after a meeting with the authorities in the provincial capital, Pemba.

Work is underway to provide the infrastructure “with the minimum acceptable conditions” for passage between the two countries, where the border is demarcated by the Rovuma river.

Without committing to a specific date, Minister Massingue was nonetheless able to commit to reopening “within this year, without fail”.

READ: Mozambique: Plan to modernise border crossing posts with Tanzania – Lusa

Cabo Delgado: Four border posts to be built between Mozambique and Tanzania – RM

Namoto was used by hundreds of people fleeing the March and April 2021 attacks on Palma, the natural gas projects hub about 40 kilometres to the south, who crossed the Rovuma River into Tanzania in search of safety.

The interior minister is in Cabo Delgado this week and will also visit Palma and Mocímboa da Praia, districts also affected by the armed insurgency.

READ: Tanzania’s president says peace restored along border with Mozambique

The province faces an armed insurgency with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State.

The insurgency has led to a military response since July 2021 with support from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), liberating districts near the gas projects.

However, new waves of attacks have arisen in the south of the region and in the neighbouring province of Nampula.

The conflict has already displaced more than a million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and cost around 4,000 lives, according to the ACLED conflict registration project.

🇲🇿🇹🇿 The Namoto border post, in Quionga, #Palma district, which establishes the formal link between #Mozambique & #Tanzania officially reopened on April 15.
Small boats now carry people, while the regular ferry, the MV Kilambo, is back in service.#CaboDelgado #Mtwara pic.twitter.com/Km7nB43Msc

— Cabo Delgado (@DelgadoCabo) April 17, 2023

#Ruvuma river, forming the border between #Tanzania (at top) and #Mozambique, from #ISS, 10May2021. Image taken by @Astro_Sabot. Original here https://t.co/xU6k8Rom3i @DaveAtCOGS pic.twitter.com/zDJRlLtOrP

— huub eggen (@phi48) May 24, 2021