Mozambique: Nyusi presides over cabinet meeting in Cabo Delgado

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Mozambique: Nyusi presides over cabinet meeting in Cabo Delgado

12:29 CAT | 10 Feb 2020

File photo: Correio da Manhã Mozambique

The Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, announced today that he would pay a working visit to Cabo Delgado, in the north of the country, a region affected both by armed conflict and natural gas mega-projects, and take the Council of Ministers with him for a meeting there.

The visit comes days after the provincial government announced that the violence, which has lasted for two years, has affected 156,400 people, 25,000 of them children, who have lost property or have been forced to move away from home.

Reports from the population and authorities suggest a minimum of 350 to 400 deaths as a result of the violence.

A presidency statement reveals that the Mozambican head of state will head the usual Tuesday Council of Ministers session during his visit, extended to the provincial government and other cadres, and will also preside over popular rallies.

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President Nyusi admitted in January, after contacts with companies during the United Kingdom-Africa summit in London, that a solution to the conflict would require external support.

The attacks, carried out by mosque-goers characterised by local Islamic leaders who had reported friction, as “radicalised” by foreigners, broke out in 2017.

Authorship of the attacks has never been claimed, except for some communiqués allegedly from the Islamic State jihadist group since June but whose presence on the ground experts and authorities consider scarcely credible.

Gas megaprojects in Cabo Delgado will put Mozambique in the top 10 of world natural gas producers from 2022 on, and Portuguese companies and workers are among the dozens of firms contracted by the oil and gas consortia.

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Source: Lusa