Mozambique: Nyusi urges terrorist leaders to surrender

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Nyusi urges terrorist leaders to surrender

5:52 CAT | 09 Sep 2024

Photo: O País

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Saturday urged the leaders of the islamist terrorists in the northern province of Cabo Delgado to lay down their arm and surrender.

Surrender was the best option, he added, because the government now knew the identity of some of the terrorist leaders, and it was running out of patience.

Speaking in the southern city of Matola, at celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the agreement on Mozambican independence, signed on 7 September 1974 between the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) and the Portuguese government, Nyusi said “We know the names of some of the leaders. They should hand themselves in now, because our patience is being exhausted, and later could be too late, since they will already have destroyed so much”.

He declined to give the names of any terrorist leaders, but suggested that they might be revealed on Armed Forces Day, 25 September.

Nyusi praised the veterans of the war for Mozambican independence who, despite their advanced age, had volunteered to take part in the fight against the jihadists. They, and some of their dependents, had formed the militia known as the “Local Force”.

“Our veterans, structured as the Local Force in the districts affected by terrorism, have decided to take up their weapons once again, to fight against a new enemy”, he said.

Nyusicitoryday.tt_

Nyusi added that, in recent years, he had issued presidential decrees decorating 23,670 veterans. They had been awarded the “Veteran of the National Liberation Struggle” medal.

The government had also guaranteed free access to education to 95,867 children of veterans.

Around 70,000 pensions had been fixed, said Nyusi, not only for veterans of the liberation war, but also for members of what is known, delicately, as the “residual force” of the main opposition party, Renamo.

4,089 pensions for former Renamo guerrillas had been fixed under the “Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR)” programme which formed part of the peace agreement signed between Nyusi and Renamo leader Ossufo Momade, in 2019.

Compatriotas!

Celebremos orgulhosos e alegres o 07 de Setembro, o Dia da Vitória, pois há 50 anos, nesta data ganhámos a nossa soberania, a nossa identidade como moçambicanos, com a assinatura dos Acordos de Lusaka, abrindo espaço para a Independência Nacional. pic.twitter.com/Ql8YnJt2en

— Presidente Filipe Nyusi (@filipe_nyusi) September 8, 2024